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The 

Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

From  the  Beginnings 
Down  to  the  Year  1300 

by 

James  Douglas  Bruce,  Ph.  D. 

Professor  of  the  English  Language  and  Literature 
in  the  University  ol  Tennessee. 


Second  Edition 
with  a  supplement  by  Alfons  Hilka  (Goettingen) 

Volume  I 


GLOUCESTER,  MASS. 

PETER  SMITH 

1958 


SECOND  EDITION,    I928 

REPRINTED   I958  BY  PERMISSION  OF 
THE  JOHNS  HOPKINS  PRESS 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Preface. 

The  present  volumes  are  the  outgrowth  of  a  series  of  six 
lectures  on  the  Arthurian  Romances  which  I  delivered  before  the 
graduate  students  of  the  Modern  Language  Departments  of  the 
Johns  Hopkins  University  in  December,  1912,  and  which  I  repeat- 
ed in  the  Summer  School  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  in 
1915  as  part  of  a  general  course  on  the  Mediaeval  Romances.  It 
was  only  after  the  repetition,  however,  just  mentioned  that  I  decided 
to  work  these  lectures  out  in  a  fuller  form  for  publication.  The 
task  of  putting  this  purpose  into  effect  grew  constantly  upon  my 
hands,  so  that  the  final  result  is  a  far  bulkier  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject than  I  originally  had  in  contemplation.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  need  of  a  guide  through  the  mazes  of  mediaeval  Arthurian  ro- 
mance and  of  the  vast  body  of  modern  critical  writings  pertaining 
there-to  has  been  long  felt  by  students  of  mediaeval  literature, 
and  the  book,  in  its  present  form,  is  offered  as  an  attempt  to  meet 
that  need. 

I  regret  the  necessity  of  fixing  upon  1300  as  the  downward 
limit  of  the  treatise.  This  regret  applies  less,  to  be  sure,  to  the 
continental  romances  of  the  cycle  —  since,  notwithstanding  the  pop- 
ularity in  its  own  day  of  such  a  work  as  Le  Petit  Artus  de  Bre- 
taigne,  for  example,  all  really  notable  productions  in  this  genre 
on  the  continent  antedate  that  year  —  than  to  those  written  in 
English.  For,  except  Sir  Tristrem  and  Arthour  and  Merlin, 
neither  of  which  rise  above  mediocrity,  the  extant  English  ro- 
mances of  the  cycle  were  composed  after  the  year  1300.  Never- 
theless, even  as  regards  the  English  romances,  the  expressed 
regret  was  mitigated  by  the  reflection  that,  after  all,  mediaeval 
English  literature  can  boast  of  only  four  contributions  of  sub- 
stantial importance  to  Arthurian  romance,  viz.  Sir  Gawain  and 
the  Green  Knight,  the  alliterative  Morte  Arthure,  the  stanzaic 


IV  Preface 

Morte  Arthur,  and  Malory's  great  compilation  in  prose.  In  any 
event,  the  determining  factor  in  the  limitation  of  time  which  has 
here  been  adopted  was  that  to  have  attempted  to  carry  on  the  work 
any  further  would  have  meant  an  indefinite  postponement  of  its 
completion. 

In  a  domain  where  almost  everything  is  the  subject  of  con- 
troversy, as  is  the  case  with  Arthurian  romance,  it  is  difficult 
for  the  author  of  a  general  treatise,  like  the  present  one,  who  has 
strong  convictions  in  regard  to  the  questions  under  debate,  not  to 
seem  frequently  over-dogmatic  or  even  unfair  to  his  opponents 
in  the  expression  of  these  convictions.  In  the  notes  and  in  the 
division  of  the  book  entitled  "Discussions",  I  have  endeavored 
to  justify  at  length  my  own  position  in  many  of  these  matters,  but, 
owing  to  considerations  of  space,  it  has  been  obviously  impossible 
to  do  this  in  all  instances,  and  so  I  have  often  been  compelled  to 
content  myself  with  inserting  into  my  presentation  of  the  subject 
such  qualifying  clauses  as  "in  my  opinion"  and  the  like.  But 
since  such  clauses  are  apt  to  become  tiresome  by  repetition,  I  have 
on  many  occasions  ventured  to  omit  them,  without  intending,  of 
course,  to  claim  infallibility  in  leaving  the  expression  of  my  views 
thus  unqualified.  As  an  example  of  such  controversial  questions 
tho  age-long  debate  concerning  the  debt  of  the  Arthurian  romances 
to  Celtic  sources  may  be  cited.  Like  Professors  Foerster  and  Golther 
before  me,  I  am  convinced  that  this  debt  has  been,  generally  speak- 
ing, greatly  exaggerated  and  that  personal  invention  was  the  most 
important  factor  in  the  creation  of  these  romances  —  that  we  have, 
therefore,  in  this  species  of  literature  the  products  of  a  literary 
fashion  steadily  developed  by  successive  generations  of  writers  in 
an  age  when  the  sense  of  literary  property  was  virtually  non- 
existent and  men  did  not  hesitate  to  use  their  predecessors'  com- 
positions for  any  purpose  they  chose  —  not,  in  any  essential  degree, 
the  reflection  of  a  great  body  of  oral  tradition.1    My  presentation 


1  This  is  undeniably  true  of  the  prose  romances.  I  believe, 
however,  that  if  we  deduct  most  of  the  lays  and  a  few  episodes 
(indicated  passim  below)  in  the  earlier  romances,  the  statement  will 
also  hold  good  of  the  metrical  romances.    After  all,  most  of  the  extant 


Preface  V 

of  the  matter  proceeds,  accordingly,  from  this  point  of  view,  al- 
though I  have,  of  course,  tried  to  be  fair  to  the  scholars  who  espouse 
the  opposite  theory.  Indeed,  my  position  with  regard  to  the  whole 
general  question  concerning  the  folk-tale  sources  of  the  Arthurian 
romances  will  be  found  to  be  somewhat  similar  to  that  just  indi- 
cated in  the  case  of  the  Celtic  problem.  For,  even  apart  from 
the  question  of  specifically  Celtic  sources,  in  my  opinion,  the  ele- 
ment of  individual  invention  and  of  purely  literary  origins  in  the 
romances  has  been  unduly  minimized.  The  authors  of  these  ro- 
mances were  primarily  poets,  not  transcribers  of  folk-tales,  and 
it  seems  strange  that  scholars  should  so  often  have  imputed  to  them 
the  strictest  accuracy  in  following  imaginary  folk-tale  sources  when 
we  know  that  even  the  professional  collectors  of  folk-tales  in  modern 
times  have  rarely  taken  down  such  stories  from  oral  recitation 
without  introducing  into  their  texts  numerous  unauthorized  alter- 
ations. 

A  further  word  of  explanation  is,  perhaps,  due  with  regard 
to  the  inclusion  of  many  romances  that  are  mediocre  or  even  worse 
in  the  division  of  Vol.  II  which  is  devoted  to  analyses.  This  has 
been  done  with  an  especial  view  to  the  students  of  stories,  who  are, 
of  course,  particularly  numerous  in  the  field  of  mediaeval  studies. 
The  more  tedious  the  romance,  the  more  grateful  for  such  con- 
densed synopses,  doubtless,  will  be  the  specialist  who  is  endeavor- 
ing to  run  down  the  history  of  some  motif  in  fiction.  In  any  event, 
as  I  hardly  need  observe,  these  analyses  have  been  grouped  to- 
gether in  a  section  by  themselves,  so  that  they  do  not  interrupt  the 
general  narrative  of  the  development  of  Arthurian  romance,  and, 
consequently,  readers  who  may  be  interested  in  the  remainder  of 
the  book  will  be  able  to  omit  without  inconvenience  such  analyses 
in  this  section  as  do  not  attract  them,  or,  indeed,  the  whole  section. 

In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  express  my  gratitude  to  Professor 
James  W.  Bright  for  having  offered  to  include  this  book  in  the 

romances  in  verse  were  written  after  the  composition  of  the  prose  ro- 
mances had  begun,  and,  obviously,  there  was  no  reason  why  the 
authors  of  the  former  and  of  the  latter,  respectively,  should  have  drawn 
upon  sources  of  a  different  character. 


VI  Preface 

series,  Hesperia,  —  also,  to  the  authorities  of  the  British  Museum 
and  Widener  Library  (Harvard  University),  to  whose  well-known 
liberality  and  courtesy  I  have  been  deeply  indebted  whilst  prosecut- 
ing my  Arthurian  studies  in  those  institutions. 

University  of  Tennessee, 
Knoxville,  Tennessee,  J.  D.   BRUCE. 

November  16,  1922. 


Contents  of  vol.  I. 
Part  I:  Traditions,  Chronicles,  Lays,  and  Romances 

Chapters  Page 

I.  Early  Traditions  concerning-  Arthur 3 

II.  Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances 37 

1.  The  Lays 52 

2.  The  Romances 67 

3.  The  Origin  of  the  Round  Table  and  Some  Other  Questions 

of  Celtic  Origins 82 

III.  Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors 100 

IV.  Merlin 129 

V.  Tristan 152 

VI.  Lancelot 192 

Part  II:  The  Holy  Grail 

I.  Chretien,  Robert  de  Boron,  and  the  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  219 
II.  The  Theory  of  Celtic  Origin 2G9 

III.  The  Ritual  Theory 277 

IV.  Continuations  of  Chretien 290 

V.   Sir  Perceval  of  Galles 309 

VI.  Wolfram's  Parzival- 313 

VII.  Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sone  de  Nausay 342 

VIII.  Other  Theories  Concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail  .      .     .354 

Part  III:  The  Prose  Romances 

I.  Beginnings  of  the  Prose  Romances 365 

II.  The  Prose  Cycles 368 

III.  The  Vulgate  Cycle 374 

1.  L'Estoire  del  Saint  Graal 374 

2.  L'Estoire  de  Merlin 395 

3.  Li  Livres  de  Lancelot 397 

4.  La  Queste  del  Saint  Graal 419 

5.  La  Mort  Artu 426 

IV.  Variant  Versions  of  Parts  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  .     .     .     .443 
V.  Date  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle 450 

VI.  Development  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle 455 

VII.  The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances  458 

VIII.  Li  Contes  del  Brait  Merlin 480 

IX.  The  Prose  Tristan 483 


Abbreviations  employed  in  the  present  treatise. 

(Herrig's)  Archiv  f.  d.  St.  der  n.  Spr.  =  Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren 

Sprachen. 
LB  =  Literaturblatt  fur  Germanische  und  Romanische  Philologie. 

LZ  =  Literarisches  Zentralblatt  fiii  Deutschland. 

MLN       =  Modern  Language  Notes. 
MLR       =  Modern  Language  Review. 
MPh        =  Modern  Philology. 

PMLA    =  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association   of  America. 
RR  —  Romanic  Review. 

RTR       =  Paulin  Paris's  Romans  de  la  Table  Ronde  (5  vols.,  Paris, 

1868-1877). 
Sommer  =  H.  0.  Sommer's   The  Vulgate   Version  of  the  Arthurian 

Romances  (7  vols,  plus  Index,  Washington,  D.  C,  1908—1916). 
Vollmoller,  JB  =  K.  Vollmollers   Jahresbericht   tiber    die   Fortschritte    der 

Romanischen  Philologie. 
Zs.  f.  celt.  Ph.  =  Zeitschrift  fur  celtische  Philologie. 
Zs.  f.  d.  A.  =  Zeitschrift  fur  deutsches  Altertum. 
Zs.  f.  d.  Ph.  =  Zeitschrift  fur  deutsche  Philologie. 

Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  =  Zeit&chrift  fur  f ranzosische  Sprache  und  Litteratur. 
Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.  =  Zeitschrift  lur  romanische  Philologie. 


PART  I. 

TRADITIONS,  CHRONICLES,  LAYS,  AND  ROMANCES. 


Chapter  I. 

Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  in  the  Chro- 
nicles and  Elsewhere. 

In  the  earliest  recorded  traditions  concerning  Arthur,  he  is 
represented  as  a  victorious  leader  of  the  Britons  —  early  in  the 
sixth  century,  it  would  appear  —  in  their  desperate  struggle 
against  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders.  But  did  any  such  person  ever 
actually  exist?  The  candid  historian  must  admit  that  the  evi- 
dence on  the  subject  (which  we  shall  review  in  this  chapter)  is 
meagre,  relatively  late,  and  almost  wholly  fantastic,  and  that, 
consequently,  an  affirmative  answer  to  this  question  is,  by  no 
means,  inevitable.  Nevertheless,  we  may  say  that  under  the  con- 
ditions that  prevailed  in  the  wild  years  just  referred  to  there  is 
nothing  unlikely  in  the  supposition  that  some  born  leader  of  men 
may  have  emerged  from  the  mass  of  the  Britons  and  by  his  energy 
and  valor  have  enabled  them  to  win  such  signal,  though  temporary, 
successes  over  their  enemies  as  to  have  secured  for  him  a  legendary 
fame  with  posterity.  Moreover,  strong  confirmation  of  Arthur's 
historical  character  seems  afforded  by  the  fact  that  his  name  is, 
in  its  origin,  not  Celtic,  but  Roman,  being  derived  from  the  name, 
Artorius,1  which  occurs  in  Tacitus2  and  Juvenal3  and  which  is, 


1  Cp.  Heinrich  Zimmer,  Gottingische  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  Oct. 
10,  1890,  p.  818.  The  German  scholar  cites  ibid.,  note  1,  various 
Celts  with  Roman  names,  e.  g.  Constantinus  and  Aurelius  (Conan)  among 
the  Celtic  princes  denounced  by  Gildas  (first  half  of  the  sixth  century). 
Even  the  names  of  some  of  the  best-known  characters  that  figure  in 
Celtic  tales  were  derived  from  the  Romans,  e.  g.  Yvain-Owein  from 
Eugenius,  Geraint  from  Gerontius,  Kei  (perhaps)  from  Cams.  Simil- 
arly, R.  Thurneysen,  Zs.  f.  deutsche  Philologie,  XXVIII,  91,  note  1, 
with  reference  to  Ywein,  and  ibid.,  97,  note  1,  with  reference  to  Urien 
(Urbgen)  =   Urbigenus.    It  was  a  curious  fancy  of  A.  Holtzmanns, 


4  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

indeed,  the  name  of  a  Roman  gens.  During  the  long  centuries  of 
Roman  occupation  of  Britain  (from  the  first  century  to  the  fifth), 
many  Romans,  from  one  circumstance  or  another,  had  settled  in 
that  country,  and  a  still  larger  number  of  the  native  Celtic  in- 
habitants had  become  Romanized.  When  the  Anglo-Saxon  on- 
slaught came,  such  elements  in  the  population  shared,  of  course, 
the  fortunes  of  the  rest,  and,  owing  to  the  superiority  in  education 
and  wealth  which  they  generally  enjoyed,  were,  perhaps,  even  more 
likely  than  the  pure  Britons  to  produce  a  national  hero.  Certainly 
we  know  from  Gildas  (ch.  5)  that  one  of  the  principal  leaders  of 
the  Britons  in  their  wars  against  the  invaders  was  Ambrosius  Aure- 
lianus,  "a  man  of  Roman  race.''  When  the  chroniclers,  then,  report 
that  Arthur  won  the  battle  of  Mons  Badonis  (Badon  Hill)  —  an 
historical  battle  fought,  undoubtedly,  as  we  know,  in  the  first  part 
of  the  sixth  century  —  it  seems  wiser  to  accept  this  statement  as 
authentic  and  to  recognize  in  him  a  man  of  Roman  descent  or  a 
Romanized  Celt,  who,  in  these  times  of  stress,  attained  the  leader- 
ship of  the  British  hosts.  There  is  no  need,  therefore,  of  regarding 
him  simply  as  a  creature  of  the  popular  imagination  or  of  vapori- 
zing him  into  a  hypothetical  culture-divinity,  as  various  scholars 
have  done.4 


Pfeiffer's  Germania,  XII,  279  (1867)  that  not  only  were  Arthur  and 
Vortimer,  son  of  Vortigern  and  enemy  of  Hengist  and  Horsa,  the  same 
person,  in  British  and  Anglo-Saxon  tradition,  respectively,  but  that  their 
names  were,  also,  identical,  Vortimer  having  become  Arthur,  as  he  sur- 
mises, in  Welsh  pronunciation. 

2  Annals ;  Book  XV,  ch.  71. 

8  Satires,  III,  29  —  here  in  the  feminine  form,  as  a  woman's 
name,  Artoria  Flaccilla. 

4  So  John  Rhys,  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  39  ff. 
(Oxford  189i).  He  acknowledges  that  the  derivation  of  Arthur  from 
Artor,  Artorius  is,  phonetically,  unobjectionable;  nevertheless,  with 
his  customary  weakness  for  the  fanciful  mythological  interpretations  of 
Max  Miiller  and  his  school  —  once  so  popular,  but  now  generally  dis- 
credited —  he  endeavors  to  connect  the  name  with  the  Aryan  root, 
ar  —  (=  to  plough),  and  hence  conjectures  that  Arthur  was  by  origin 
a  culture-divinity. 

Among  the  interpretations  of  Arthur's  name,  I  note,  also,  the  follo- 
wing: In  his  article,   "King  Arthur  and  Gildas",  The  Academy,  Oct. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  5 

Let  us  examine  now  in  due  order  the  testimony  of  the  earliest 
records  with  respect  to  Arthur  and  his  achievements. 

It  appears  surprising,  at  first  sight,  that  Gildas,  the  British 
historian,  who  is  our  earliest  authority  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  con- 
quest of  Britain,  in  his  De  Excidio  et  Conquestu  Britanniae  — 5 
written  about  540,  A.  D.  —  should  not  mention  Arthur,  although 
he  refers  (ch.  26)  to  the  battle  of  Badon  Hill  with  which  later 
chroniclers  connected  that  hero's  fame.6  The  explanation,  however, 
may  well  lie  in  the  fact  that  Gildas's  "Epistle",  as  he  calls  it  (ch. 
1),  is  not  a  regular  historical  narrative  —  it  was  not  composed  as 
such  —  but  rather  a  homily  on  the  misfortunes  of  the  Britons 
as  due  to  their  sins  —  a  "tract  for  the  times",  as  a  modern  editor 
has  aptly  called  it  — 7  and  that  it  gives  us,  therefore,  simply  glimpses 
of  persons  and  events  rather  than  an  orderly  account  of  them.  In- 
deed, a  large  part  of  the  work  consists  of  a  mere  cento  of  passages 


12,  1895,  E.  W.  B.  Nicholson  identifies  with  Arthur  the  personage 
referred  to  by  Gildas,  ch.  32,  as  "Ursus",  and  regards  Arthur  as  made 
up  of  two  old  Celtic  words,  artos  (=  bear)  and  vivos  (=  man).  Hence, 
the  name  would  mean  Bear-male  or  He-bear,  J.  Pinkerton,  I  may 
remark,  in  his  edition  of  Barbour's  Bruce,  I,  26  (London,  1790),  had 
anticipated  Nicholson's  etymology,  but  had  interpreted  the  combination 
as  meaning  simply  "the  great  man".  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Celtic  proper 
names  with  avtos  (=  beav)  in  composition  are  numerous.  Cp.  A.  Holder, 
Alt-Celtischev  Spvachschatz,  226  f.  (Leipzig  1891),  although  Holder, 
himself,  suggests  a  probable  connection  oiAvthur  with  Irish  art  (===  stone). 

6  The  standard  text  of  this  work  is  Theodor  Mommsen's,  in  the 
Monumenta  Gevmaniae  Histovica,  Auctorum  Antiquissimorum,  vol. 
XIII,  (Berlin,  1898).  Hugh  Williams  has  reprinted  this  text  (with  a 
few  changes)  in  his  edition,  Cymmrodorion  Record  Series,  No.  3 
(London,  1899 — 1901).  He  gives,  also,  a  translation  and  valuable 
notes.  Among  the  older  editions,  San  Marte's  —  Nennius  und  Gildas, 
(Berlin,  1844)  —  is  still  useful.  For  the  critical  literature  on  Gildas, 
cp.  R.  H.  Fletcher,  The  Arthurian  Material  of  the  Chronicles,  espe- 
cially those  of  Great  Bvitain  and  France,  pp.  2f.,  note,  (Boston,  1906): 
[Harvard]  Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and  Literature,  X. 

0  According  to  the  most  acceptable  construction  of  this  same 
passage,  indeed,  he  tells  us  in  it,  also,  that  he  was  born  in  the  year 
of  that  battle.  He  wrote  the  De  Excidio  before  547.  Cp.  Mommsen's 
edition,  p.  5. 

7  Hugh  Williams,  p.  V. 


6  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

from  the  Scriptures  —  especially,  thunders  of  the  Old  Testament 
prophets  against  the  sins  of  the  Jews  —  both  people  and  rulers  — 
which  Gildas  here  applies  to  his  own  fellow-countrymen.8  From 
the  silence  of  such  a  work  no  inference  can  be  drawn  as  to  the 
matter  in  hand.  The  first  record9  of  the  name,  Arthur,  occurs  in 
Adamnan's  life  of  Saint  Columba,10  the  famous  Irish  missionary, 
who  founded  the  monastery  at  Iona  in  the  Hebrides.  In  a  Latinized 
form,  Arturius  —  for  Adamnan's  work  is  in  Latin  -  -  it  is  there 
found  as  the  name  of  a  young  Irish  prince  who  perished  in  a  battle 
at  Tigernach  (Ireland)  in  the  year,  596.  The  father  of  this  young 
man,  Aed  mac  Gabrain,  was  the  ruler  of  an  Irish  state,  Dalraida, 
on  the  southwest  coast  of  Scotland.  Still  further,  in  the  seventh 
century  we  find  a  Welsh  prince,11  a  British  prince12  and  an  Irish- 
man whose  rank  is  unknown,13  all  bearing  this  name,  and  since 
Arthur  was  not  a  common  name  among  the  Celts,  perhaps,  we  are 
justified  in  interpreting  these  instances  of  its  occurrence  as  testi- 
mony to  the  existence  of  legends  in  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries 
concerning  the  person  who  was  destined  to  render  it  so  illustrious.14 
The  first  direct  mention,  however,  of  the  great  sovereign  of  ro- 
mance occurs  in  the  account  of  his  exploits  in  the  Historia  Brit- 


h  Virtually  only  Part  I  (ch.  1  —  26)  gives  any  historical  infor- 
mation. 

9  For  the  first  three  Arthurs  here  noted,  cp.  H.  Zimmer.  Nennius 
Vindicatus,  pp.  283 ff.  (Berlin  1893). 

10  Book  I,  ch.  9.  Cp.  J.  T.  Fowler's  second  edition  (Oxford,  1920). 
Adamnan  died  in  704.  His  Vita  Columbae  was  written  before  697 
and  is  preserved  in  a  MS.  not  later  than  714. 

11  Arthur  map  Petr,  who  was  ruling  in  Dyfed  (Southwest  Wales) 
in  the  first  decade  of  the  seventh  century. 

12  Arthur,  son  of  Bicuir,  apparently  a  prince.  He  slew  a  famous 
Ulster  chieftain  in  Cantire  (Southwest  Scotland)  in  625. 

13  Cp.  Kuno  Meyer  in  his  article  "Eine  verschollene  Artursage", 
pp.  63ff.  of  the  Festschrift  fur  Ernst  Windisch  (Leipzig,  1914).  The 
name  occurs  here  in  a  list  of  ecclesiastics  who  stood  security  for  the 
execution  of  the  law  known  as  Cain  Adamnain.  The  list  was  compiled 
in  697  and  contains  the  name,  Faradach  ho  a  Artur  —  i.  e.  "Faradach, 
grand-son  of  Arthur".  This  Arthur,  then,  must  have  lived  in  the  early 
part    of  the  seventh  century. 

So  Zimmer,  loc.  cit. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  7 

tonum  (ch.  56),  which  goes  under  the  name  of  Nennius.15  Here 
it  is  said  that,  after  the  death  of  Hengest,  the  Saxon  chieftain, 
Arthur  fought  against  the  Saxons  cum  regibus  Brittonum,  sed 
ipse  dux  erat  bellorum  —  that  is  to  say,  that  he  was  not  himself 
one  of  the  British  kings,  although  he  commanded  their  forces  in 
battle.16  Then  follows  an  enumeration  of  his  twelve  great  vic- 
tories,17 concluding  with  that  of  Badon  Hill,  which  we  know  from 
Gildas  to  be  historical  —  only  here  in  Nennius  the  narrative  is 
already  colored  with  legend,  for  it  is  said  that  Arthur  alone  slew 
960  of  the  enemy  in  a  single  attack.18 


16  The  standard  edition  of  Nennius  is  T.  Mommsen's.  It  is  in  the 
same  volume  as  his  edition  of  Gildas,  mentioned  above.  San  Marte, 
also,  edited  Nennius,  in  the  same  volume  as  his  Gildas.  Cp.  p.  5, 
note  5,  above.  His  notes  are  still  useful.  For  bibliography  of  Nennius, 
cp.  Fletcher,  op.  cit.,  pp.   8f.,  note. 

18  Richard  Thurneysen,  Zs.  f.  deutsche  Philologie,  XXVIII,  98, 
note  1  (1895),  suggests  that  the  term  dux  was  applied  to  rulers  who 
did  not  spring  from  the  hochadel  (higher  nobility).  It  is  evident,  how- 
ever, here  that  Arthur  is  not  conceived  of  as  a  ruler. 

17  The  variants  in  Mommsen's  edition  (p.  200)  show  great  con- 
fusion in  regard  to  the  eleventh  in  the  list  of  Arthur's  battles,  "bellum 
in  monte  qui  dicitur  Agned."  We  shall  see  below,  Part  IV,  that 
Anscombe  has  argued  that  "Mons  Badonis"  is  simply  a  corruption 
for  "Mons  Hagonis"  ("Hill  of  Agon").  Except  for  one  MS.,  however, 
all  MSS.  seem  to  have  "Mons  Badonis"  for  the  twelfth.  A.  Wade- 
Evans,  Y  Cyrnmrodor,  XXII,  155,  contends  that  the  name  of  this 
battle  got  into  the  list  from  "pseudo-Gildas"  (i.  e.  Gildas,  whose  work 
he  regards  as  spurious  and  late)  and  Bede;  but  the  analyses  of  Zimmer 
and  Thurneysen  seem  to  establish  the  antiquity  of  the  whole  list.  The 
entry  in  the  Annates  Cambriae  (under  516),  however,  concerning  Mons 
Badonis  apparently  possesses  no  value.  The  annalist,  it  seems,  took  it 
from  Nennius  and  attached  to  it  details  which  he  found  in  Nennius  con- 
nected with  the  eighth  battle  ("in  castello  Guinion").  Cp.  on  the  sub- 
ject A.  de  la  Borderie,  Revue  Celtique,  VI,  2,  and  W.  H.  Stevenson, 
The  English  Historical  Review,  XVII,  633,  note  34. 

The  most  detailed  effort  to  identify  the  sites  of  the  twelve  battles 
is  Anscombe's  Zs.  f.  celt.  Ph.,  V,  103ff.  (1905),  but  in  no  case  can 
he  be  said  to  have  attained  assured  results. 

Anscombe,  in  the  article  just  cited  (p.  116),  interprets  this  960 
as  due  to  some  scribal  blunder.  The  figure  was  originally  470,  he 
says,  and  indicated,  really,  the  date  of  the  battle  of  Mons  Hagonis  (the 


8  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

In  the  section  of  this  work  (ch.  73)  called  De  mirabilibus 
Britanniae,  we  have  still  further  mention  of  Arthur  in  connection 
with  a  marvel  localized  in  the  region  called  Buelt  —  the  present 
Builth  in  South  Wales.  Here  it  is  stated  that  there  was  in  this 
place  a  heap  of  stones,  which  was  crowned  by  one  stone  that  bore 
the  impress  of  the  foot  of  Arthur's  dog,  Cabal.  The  stone  had 
received  this  impress  during  Arthur's  hunting  of  the  boar  Troynt 
—  an  adventure  which  is  related  fully  in  the  mediaeval  Welsh  tale 
of  Kulhwch  and  Olwen.  Nennius  says  that,  although  one  might 
remove  this  stone  from  the  heap  one  day,  it  would  always  be  found 
there  the  next.  Immediately  after  this  we  find  still  another  mar- 
vel connected  with  Arthur  —  the  tomb  of  his  son,  Anir,  who  had 
fallen  at  the  hands  of  his  father.  This  tomb  varied  in  length  at 
every  new  measurement.  At  one  time  it  might  measure  six  feet, 
at  another  fifteen  —  "and  I  alone  have  tested  it,"  says  the  vera- 
cious chronicler. 

The  work  which  bears  the  name  of  Nennius  is  composite  in 
character,  and  the  history  of  its  growth  seems  to  be  as  follows:19 

name  he  gives  to  the  great  British  victory  over  the  Saxons  which  in 
our  text  of  Gildas  is  called,  in  the  genitive,  "Badonici  montis").  "Geof- 
frey of  Monmouth,  Book  DC,  ch.  15,  as  Anscombe  contends,  preserves 
the  correct  figure,  viz.  470,  only  Geoffrey,  too,  uses  it  of  the  number 
of  men  that  Arthur  killed  in  the  battle  of  Mount  Badon.  Wade-Evans, 
also,  adopts  these  views  of  Anscombe's.  Cp.  Y  Cymmrodor,  XXII,  128. 
The  speculation,  however,  is  anything  but  convincing. 

18  My  account  of  this  growth  is  based  on  the  investigations  of 
Heinrich  Zimmer,  in  his  Nennius  Vindicates  (Berlin,  1893)  and  of 
Thurneyseu,  in  his  reviews  of  this  work  of  Zimmer's  in  the  Zs.  f. 
deutsche  Philologie,  XXVIII,  80ff.  (1895)  and  of  Mommsen's  edition 
of  Gildas  and  Nennius  in  Zs.  /.  celt.  Ph.,  I,  157ff.  (1896),  respec- 
tively. 

Before  the  publication  of  Zimmer's  work  the  value  of  the  Historia 
Brittorum  was  underestimated  and  the  connection  of  any  one  named 
Nennius  with  it  doubted.  Moreover,  no  part  of  it  was  regarded  as  of 
so  considerable  an  antiquity  as  now  seems  to  have  been  actually  the 
case.  The  best  representative  of  this  depreciatory  tendency  is  Arthur 
de  la  Borderie:  L' Historia  Britonum  attribute  a  Nennius  et  V Hi- 
storia Britannica  avant  Geoffroi  de  Monmouth  (Paris  and  London, 
1883).  Similarly,  G.  Heeger,  Uber  die  Trojanersagen  der  Britten 
Munich,   1886),   and   even  later,  W.  W.  Newell,   "Doubts  concerning 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  9 

In  the  third  decade  of  the  ninth  century  a  writer  named  Nen- 
nius,  who  lived  in  South  Wales,  re-edited  and  expanded  an  older 
Historia  Brittonum  that  dated  back  to  679,  or,  perhaps,  in  part, 
to  an  even  earlier  period  in  the  seventh  century.  Now,  the  passage 
cited  above  concerning  Arthur  and  his  twelve  victories  belongs 
to  the  oldest  portion  of  the  work  and  shows  the  vigorous  develop- 
ment of  legend  about  the  hero's  name  within  something  like  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  the  time  when  he  must  have  lived. 
The  section  which  relates  the  marvels  of  Arthur's  dog  and  of  Anir's 


the  British  History  attributed  to  Nennius",  PMLA,  XX,  622ff.  (1905). 
Both  Zimmer  and  Thurneysen  accept  the  earlier  Historia  Brittonum 
(mentioned  in  the  text  above)  as  dating  from  679  and  as  containing  still 
older  materials.  Thurneysen,  Zs.  f.  d.  Ph.,  XXVIII,  83  f.,  is  inclined, 
still  further,  to  ascribe  to  a  Run  (Rum)  mab  Urbgen  (mentioned  in 
Nennius,  ch.  63)  the  compilation  of  a  part  of  these  older  materials. 
Urbgen  (a  historical  character  who  died  between  572  and  579)  seems 
to  have  been  the  Urien  of  the  romances;  Run  would,  therefore,  be  the 
brother  of  the  Yvain  (Ivain)  of  these  romances. 

Zimmer  neglected  the  important  Chartres  MS.  (ninth  or  tenth  cen- 
tury) of  the  Historia  Brittonum,  which  preserves  us  the  work  in  a 
pre-Nennian  form.  L.  Duchesne  published  the  text  of  this  MS.  in  the 
Revue  Celtique,  XV,  174ff.  (1894),  "Nennius  Retractatus ",  together 
with  a  discussion  of  Nennius  problems.  Thurneysen  had  the  advantage 
over  Zimmer  of  the  use  of  the  Chartres  text,  and,  taken  altogether,  his 
conclusions  concerning  the  origin  and  development  of  the  Historia 
Brittonum,  as  stated  Zs.  f.  celt.  Ph.,  I,  166f.  (1896),  are  to  be  pre- 
ferred, viz.  that  in  the  neighborhood  of  Builth  (in  South  Wales),  in  the 
year  826,  Nennius  (Nemnius),  compiled  the  work  in  the  full  form,  known 
as  the  Harleian  recension.  Immediately  thereafter,  on  the  advice  of 
his  teacher,  Beulan  (cp.  ch.  10),  he  prepared  an  abbreviated  edition  of 
this  Harleian  recension.  Later  on,  he  entered  additions  and  corrections 
in  this  abbreviated  recension.  Excerpts  from  the  life  of  St.  Germanus 
by  Map  Urbgen  constitute  the  oldest  elements  of  the  work.  For  the 
MSS.  of  the  different  recensions,  see  Mommsen,  pp.  119ff.  and  Thur- 
neysen, Zs.f.  celt.  Ph.,  I,  158f.  —  Windisch,  Das  keltische  Britannien, 
etc.,  p.  41,  speaks  of  the  Harleian  recension  as  "vornennianisch",  which 
seems,  however,  an  error. 

In  Romania,  XXIII,  432  ff.  (1894)  Cesar  Boser,  in  his  article, 
"Apropos  de  Nennius",  had  already  (before  Thurneysen)  attacked  the 
argument  by  which  Zimmer  had  attempted  to  fix  the  date  of  Nennius. 
He  suggests,  however,  no  alternative  date. 


10  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tomb  is  one  of  the  later  additions,  as  the  manuscript  tradition 
proves,  but  it  testifies  also  to  the  continued  growth  of  wonderful 
legends  about  the  British  chieftain.  It  does  not  surprise  us  then 
to  find  that  in  the  year,  1113,  stories  concerning  Arthur  were 
firmly  established  both  in  Brittany  and  in  Cornwall.  In  that  year 
certain  monks  of  Laon  in  Brittany  were  sent  to  England  to  beg  mo- 
ney for  the  rebuilding  of  their  cathedral  which  had  recently  been  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  We  have  an  account  of  their  experiences  preser- 
ved in  a  treatise  by  Hermann  of  Tournai.20  From  this  account 
it  appears  that  a  servant  of  the  monks  got  into  a  dispute  with  a 
Cornishman  as  to  whether  Arthur  was  still  alive  —  "exactly  in  the 
same  way"  remarks  the  chronicler  significantly,  "as  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Brittany  dispute  with  the  French  over  Arthur."  The 
affair  drew  together  a  mob  and  there  would  have  been  bloodshed, 
if  a  local  ecclesiastic  had  not  intervened.  The  chronicler  con- 
cludes naively  that  the  man  who  started  this  brawl  was  punished 
for  doing  so  —  for  he  had  a  withered  hand  and  had  come  there 
to  be  cured  by  the  relics  which  the  visiting  monks  had  brought 
with  them.  The  Holy  Virgin,  however,  was  evidently  displeased 
with  him,  for  the  relics  would  not  work  a  miracle  on  him  that  day. 
Still  further,  in  a  life  of  the  Cornish  saint,  St.  Carantoc,  also 
dating  from  about  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century,  we  find 
Arthur  reigning  in  Cornwall  and  hunting  a  dragon  which  had 
devastated  his  dominions.21 


20 


Cp.  Migne's  Patrologia  Latina,  Vol.  156,  col.  973. 
21  Cp.  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXX,  pp.  2ff.  (1901).  St.  Carantoc, 
however,  did  not  allow  any  one  to  kill  the  serpent.  He  led  the  monster 
about  like  a  lamb.  Lot  identifies  Dindraitliov,  where,  according  to  the 
legend,  Arthur  was  reigning,  with  the  modern  Castle  an  Dinas  (about 
ten  miles  east  of  Crantock).  He  points  out,  moreover,  that  Arthur  is 
represented  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  (Loth's  Mabinogion2,  I,  344)  as 
chasing  the  marvellous  boar,  Twrch  Trwyth,  in  Cornwall  (Kernyw)  and 
as  having  (Loth,  op.  cit.,  I,  38,  331,  334  et  passim)  a  royal  residence 
at  Kelliwic  (Bodmin)  in  Cornwall.  He  commands  troops  from  Cornwall 
and  Devon  in  the  Vita  Gildae,  ch.  10,  and  has  among  his  retinue 
Gwynnhyvar  (Loth,  op.  cit.,  I.  277),  who  is  a  high  officer  in  those 
kingdoms  —  a  man  who  was,  also,  among  the  persons  responsible  for 
the  battle  of  Camlan.  Cornwall  figures,  furthermore,  in  the  tale  of 
Arthur's  fight  with  the  Cath  Paluc;  for  the  mother  (the  sow,  Henwen) 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  11 

We  need  not  linger  over  the  meagre  borrowings  from  Nen- 
nius  which  are  incorporated  in  certain  chronicles  of  the  two  cen- 
turies or  slightly  upwards  that  followed  the  compilation  of  that 
work  in  its  final  form,22  for  they  have  no  independent  value.  In 
these  chronicles  of  the  succeeding  centuries,  only  one  entry  is  of 
importance,  namely,  that  which  in  the  Annales  Cambriae,  under 
the  year  537,  records  for  the  first  time  in  the  barest  possible 


of  this  monster  was,  according  to  a  triad  (Loth,  op.  cit.,  II,  271),  in 
a  drove  of  swine  kept  at  Glynn  Dallwyr,  in  Cornwall.  On  Arthur's 
combat  with  the  Cath  Paluc,  cp.  E.  Freymond's  monograph,  Artus' 
Kampf  mit  dem  Katzenungestum  in  the  Festgabe  fur  Gustav  Grbber 
(Halle,  1899).  —  The  discussion  of  Arthurian  localities  in  Cornwall 
by  W.  H.  Dickinson  in  his  Arthur  in  Cornwall  (London,  1900)  has 
been  superseded  by  that  of  J.  Loth,  in  his  Contributions  a  Vetude 
des  Romans  de  la  Table  Bonde  (Paris,  1912). 

It  should  be  remembered,  too,  that  according  to  the  Welsh  tra- 
dition, Arthur's  last  battle  took  place  at  Camlan  —  doubtless,  Camel- 
ford  in  Cornwall,  with  which  it  is  still  locally  identified.  Cp.  F.  Lot, 
Romania,  XXX,  pp.  16ff.  (1901)  and  my  edition  of  the  Mort  Artu} 
pp.  291  ff.  This  Welsh  tradition  would  naturally  be  of  Cornish  origin. 
On  the  improbable  identification  of  Camelon  in  Scotland  as  the  scene 
of  Arthur's  final  battle,  cp.  the  works  named,  p.  73,  note  72,  below. 

2  There  are  four  such  chronicles:  1.  Annales  Cambriae,  compiled 
in  Wales  in  the  second  half  of  the  tenth  century.  2.  A  brief  Chronicle 
of  Mount  St.  Michael,  apparently,  of  Breton  origin,  and  probably  of 
the  eleventh  century.  3.  Aethelweard's  Chronicle,  written  by  an  Eng- 
lishman, probably  early  in  the  eleventh  century.  4.  Henry  of  Hun- 
tingdon's Historia  Anglorum,  English,  of  course,  and  probably  not  long 
before  1133.  For  these  chroniclers  and  their  relations  to  Nennius,  the 
various  editions  of  their  works,  etc.,  cp.  Fletcher,  op.  cit.,  pp.  3 Iff. 
The  best  editions  of  the  four  chronicles,  respectively,  are  by,  1.  E.  Philli- 
more,  Y  Cymmrodor,  IX,  141  ff.  (1888),  reprinted  by  J.  Loth,  Mabi- 
nogion",  H,  370ff.  This  gives  the  oldest  (uninterpolated)  version,  which 
is  the  only  one  we  need  consider.  2.  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  vol. 
202,  cols.  1323ff.  Cp.  first  entry.  3.  H.  Petrie  and  J.  Sharpe's  Mo- 
numenta  Historica  Britannica,  I,  499 ff.  Aethelward  uses  Nennius, 
it  seems,  but  does  not  mention  Arthur.  4.  Thomas  Arnold  in  Rolls 
Series,  vol.  74  (London,  1879).     Cp.  p.  48. 

There  is  no  need  of  conjecturing  with  Fletcher  that  nos.  3  and 
4  may  owe  something,  also,  to  popular  tradition. 


12  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

way23  the  final  battle  (here  called  of  Camlann)  between  Arthur 
and  Mordred   (Medraut). 

The  first  indisputable  indication  that  the  fame  which  Arthur 
enjoyed  among  the  Celts  had  spread  to  other  peoples  is  supplied 
by  the  Gesta  Regum  Anglorum  of  William  of  Malmesbury,  which 
was  completed  in  1125.  Besides  the  information  concerning  the 
British  chieftain  which  he  derived  from  the  above-mentioned  pas- 
sages in  Nennius,  this  writer  condemns  (I — 8)  the  idle  tales  which 
the  Britons  circulate  about  their  hero  as  detracting  from,  rather 
than  adding  to,  his  real  glory,  and  explains  (III,  287)  the  belief 
that  this  hero  will  return  from  the  fact  that  no  one  has  seen  his 
tomb,  adding  at  the  same  time  an  account  of  the  death  and  sup- 
posed tomb  of  his  nephew,  Gawain,  in  Wales.  The  same  writer's 
work  on  the  antiquities  of  Glastonbury  —  De  Antiquitate  Glasto- 
niensis  Ecclesiae  —  contains  more  Arthurian  material,  but  the 
passages  are,  no  doubt,  late  interpolations  and  will  be  dealt  with 
elsewhere.24 

If  we  could  accept  the  contention  of  some  scholars,  much  the 
most  interesting  evidence  in  regard  to  the  diffusion  of  Arthurian 
stories  before  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  would  be  that  which  was 
brought  to  light  in  the  year,  1888,  by  the  Italian  scholar,  Pio 
Rajna.25  In  the  articles  referred  to  Rajna  collected  numerous  ex- 
amples of  the  names,  Artusius  and  Galvanus  (Walwanus,  Wal- 
quanus,  etc.)  —  that  is,  Arthur  and  Gawain,  as  he  interpreted 
them26  —  from  the  historical  records  of  Northern  Italy,  including 
Tuscany  and  the  Marches  in  the  twelfth  century.  Artusius  is 
found  as  early  as  1114  and  Galvanus  as  early  as  1136  —  and, 
in  both  cases,  as  the  names  of  grown  men  —  so  that  these  names 
must  have  been  given  many  years  earlier  to  the  persons  that  bore 

5  Gueith  Camlann  (battle  of  Camlann)  in  qua  Arthur  et  Medraut 
corruerunt;  et  mortalitas  in  Britania  et  in  Hibernia  fuit.     Cp.   Loth's 
Mabinogion*,  II,  372.     The  Annales,   in  their   earliest  form,   belong 
to  the  latter  part  of  the  tenth  century.     Cp.  op.  cit.,  p.  370. 
24  Cp.  Part  II. 

26  See  his  articles  entitled  "Gli  eroi  Brettoni  nell'  onomastica  Ita- 
liana",   Romania,  XVII,  161  ff.,  355ff.  (1888). 

3  Even  Foerster  accepted  Rajna's  interpretations  without  question. 
Cp.  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XX,  247. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  13 

them  —  in  the  case  of  Artusius  not  later  than  1090.  Here,  then, 
in  the  closing  years  of  the  eleventh  century  the  tales  concerning 
Arthur,  if  we  accept  Rajna's  interpretation,  were  so  widespread 
and  popular  as  to  affect  the  nomenclature  of  Northern  Italy. 
Moreover,  the  forms  of  these  names  would  appear  to  make  it 
evident  that  the  stories  in  question  reached  Italy  in  French  ver- 
sions, for  Artusius  seems,  at  first  sight,  plainly  a  Latinization  of 
Artus,  the  Old  French  nominative  of  Arthur,  and  Galvanus  si- 
milarly the  Latinization  of  Old  French  Gauvain.27  It  is  to  be  ob- 
served, however,  that  even  if  Rajna's  identifications  of  those 
names  are  correct,  it  does  not  follow  necessarily  that  his  inferences 
are  equally  so,  for  Arthur  was  a  Breton  name  and  may  have  been 
brought  to  Italy  by  actual  Bretons  or  inhabitants  of  French  di- 
stricts contiguous  to  Brittany,  independently  of  any  specifically 
Arthurian  traditions.28  The  correctness  of  the  identifications  in 
question,  however,  is  not  entirely  assured,  and  the  forme,  Artusius 
and  Galvanus,  respectively,  may  be  variants  of  other  names  than 
those  proposed  by  the  Italian  scholar.29 


97  In  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  Arthur's  name  is  Latinized  as  Ar- 
thurus,  Gawain's  as  Walgannus,  Walgainus  —  probably  from  French 
Gauvain.     Cf.  Lot,  Romania,  XXVff.  (1896). 

28  This  objection  was  already,  raised  by  Suchier  in  Suchier  and 
Birch-Hirschf eld's,  Geschichte  der  Franzosischen  Literatur1,  p.  141 
(Leipzig,  1900). 

H.  Zimmer,  Gottingische  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  Oct.  1,  1890, 
p.  831,  note,  suggests  that  the  names  may  have  been  brought  to  Northern 
Italy  by  Norman  mercenaries,  who  are  known  to  have  been  in  the  ser- 
vice of  states  in  that  part  of  the  peninsula  as  early  as  the  eleventh 
century.  He  recalls,  too,  the  Norman  conquest  of  Sicily  by  Robert 
Guiscard  and  his  followers  in  the  same  century. 

29  In  his  Recherches  sur  les  sources  latines  des  contes  et  romans 
courtois  du  moyen  age,  pp.  396 f.  (Paris,  1913),  Edmond  Faral  has 
suggested  that  Artusius  may  really  be  identical  with  Germanic  Hartewic 
and  Galvanus  (Galgano,  Gualguano,  Walwanus,  Walquano,  Vol- 
vanus)  with  either  Galganus  (name  of  an  Italian  saint)  or  Galbanus 
(the  Roman  cognomen).  Faral  refers,  p.  397,  note  1,  to  studies  of  the 
question  of  these  names  undertaken  by  a  student  of  F.  Lot's  and  by 
Professor  Bedier.  As  far  as  I  am  aware,  however,  these  studies  have 
not  yet  got  into  print. 

Faral's  criticism  (pp.  393 ff.)  of  Rajna's  articles  strikes  me  as  the 


14  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Less  open  to  dispute  are  the  Arthurian  names  which  are  at- 
tached to  certain  bas-reliefs  over  the  northeast  portal  (Porta  della 
Pescheria)  of  the  Cathedral  of  Modena,30  representing  the  siege  of 

best  that  has  appeared.  Obviously,  as  he  observes,  Arthurian  names 
in  Italian  documents  of  later  date  than  1200  have  no  significance,  since 
by  that  time  the  French  romances  had  made  these  names  familiar  all 
over  Western  Europe.  In  the  above-mentioned  articles  Rajna  cites  many 
such  names  —  Galasso  (==  Galaad),  Yvannus  (=  Yvain),  etc., 
—  for  this  later  period.  Besides,  Artusius  and  Galvanus  (with  variants), 
he  cites  only  Seldina  (=  Iselt,  Iseut),  from  the  year,  1180,  for  the 
period  before  1200.  As  Faral  remarks,  the  paucity  of  the  names  from 
the  earlier  period  which  Rajna  conjectures  to  be  Arthurian  is  in  striking 
contrast  to  the  abundance  of  indisputably  Arthurian  names  for  the  later 
period. 

In  the  Archie  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen,  CXLI, 
235  (1921),  F.  Liebermann  has  noted  the  occurrence  of  Arthur  as  the 
name  of  a  man  born,  at  the  latest,  about  1140  —  apparently,  in  Sussex. 
But  he  may  have  had  Welsh  or  Breton  connections  of  some  sort  or  other. 

30  Wendelin  Foerster  was  the  first  person  to  bring  these  figures 
into  Arthurian  discussion,  viz.  in  his  article,  "Ein  neues  Artusdokument", 
Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXII,  243—8  (1898).  See,  too,  his  supplementary 
article,  "Das  neue  Artusdokument",  ibid.,  pp.  526  —  529  (1898).  The 
archivolt  and  its  figures,  however,  had  been  the  subject  of  repeated  dis- 
cussion before  this,  in  works  on  Italian  architecture.  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  526. 
Foerster  accepted  the  usual  dating  of  the  bas-reliefs  (first  decades  of 
the  twelfth  century).  He  thought  the  situation  represented  on  the  archi- 
volt was  not  derived  from  any  extant  Arthurian  romance  and  observes 
that  it  is  nearer  to  the  episode  of  Carados  and  the  Dolerose  Tor  in  the 
prose  Lancelot  (cp.  Sommer's  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian 
Romances,  IV,  90  ff.)  than  to  anything  else  in  the  surviving  romances 
and  was  possibly  derived  from  some  lost  romance,  which  was  the  source 
of  that  episode.  Foerster  makes  no  effort  to  reconcile  the  evidence  of 
these  bas-reliefs  with  his  customary  theory  that  Chretien  invented  the 
genre  of  the  Arthurian  romance. 

Foerster's  reading  of  the  names  attached  to  the  respective  figures 
and  his  identifications  of  the  same,  where  offered,  are  probably  right. 
They  are  as  follows  (p.  244):  1.  Winlogee  =  Guinloie  or  Guenloie 
(which  occurs  in  two  romances,  viz.  Li  Chevaliers  as  deus  espees  and 
Yder),  2.  Mar  doc  (=  Madoc,  or,  as  I  believe,  more  likely,  the  common 
Arthurian  Mariadok,  etc.).  3.  Burmaitus,  or  Burmaltus  (cp.  p.  526), 
not  known  elsewhere.  4.  Isdernus,  probably  =  Yder  (name  of  four 
different  Arthurian  knights).  5.  Car r ado  =  Caradoc  (the  giant,  rather 
than  Briebraz).    6.  Galvaginus,  probably  =  Gawain.    7.  Galvarium 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  15 

a  castle  by  Arthur  and  bis  followers,  with  knights  issuing  there- 
from to  attack  the  besiegers.  These  bas-reliefs  have  been  gene- 
rally dated  early  in  the  twelfth  century  and  they  include  labelled 
images  of  Arthur,  Kay,  Caradoc,  etc.,  which  prove,  if  the  above 
dating  is  correct,  that  stories  concerning  Arthur  and  the  cha- 
racters associated  with  him  were  current  in  Northern  Italy  in 
that  period.  The  evidence  of  these  figures,  however,  stands  in  such 
absolute  isolation  for  so  early  a  period  that  one  is  disposed  to 
await  further  investigation  of  their  date,  before  accepting  finally 
the  dating  which  has  prevailed  among  authorities  on  the  archi- 
tectural history  of  Lombardy  up  to  the  present  time.31    For  the 


(unknown).  Foerster  observes  that  this  name  seems  Norman,  whereas 
G.  Paris,  Romania,  XX VIII,  145  (1899),  was  inclined  to  connect  it 
with  Galuron  in  the  Chronique  de  Nantes.    8.  Che  =  Kai  (Kay). 

—  The  castle  is  at  the  top  of  the  archivolt,  in  the  centre,  and  nos.  1 
and  2  are  inside  its  walls.  On  the  left  hand,  no.  3  comes  forth  to 
attack  Arthur,  no.  4,  and  a  third  (unnamed)  knight.  On  the  right, 
no.  5  rides  out  against  nos.   6,   7  and  8. 

Pictures  of  the  figures  which  we  have  been  discussing  will  be 
found  in  many  publications  that  deal  with  the  history  of  Italian  archi- 
tecture or  the  Modena  cathedral,  more  specifically,  e.  g.  M.  G.  Zimmer- 
mann,  Oberitalische  Plastik  imfruhen  und  hohen  Mittelalter  (Leipzig, 
1897),  Plate  18;  A.  Venturi,  Storia  dell'  Arte  Italiana,  III  (Milan, 
1904),  Plate  138:  Giulio  Bertoni,  Atlante  Storico-Paleografico  del 
Duomo  di  Modena,  Plate  X  (Modena,  1909);  A.  K.  Porter,  Lombard 
Architecture,  Plate  144,  (3  vols.  New  Haven  and  London,  1917).  Among 
discussions  of  the  figures,  cp.  B.  Colfi,  "Di  una  recente  interpretazione 
[i.  e.  Foerster's]  data  alle  sculture  dell'  archivolto  nella  porta  setten- 
trionale  del  duomo  di  Modena",  Atti  e  Memorie  delta  R.  Deputazione 
di  Storia  Patria  per  le  Provincie  Modenesi,  Serie  IV,  vol.  IX  (1899) 

—  also,  Zimmermann,  p.  44,  Venturi,  III;  160ff.,  and  Porter,  I,  436 f., 
IH,  44  f. 

81  Faral,  op.  cit.,  p.  395,  dates  these  bas-reliefs  about  1200.  Pos- 
sibly, he  may  have  authority  for  this  dating,  but  the  writers  whose 
works  I  have  cited  above  place  them  in  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth 
century,  and  Foerster  (pp.  244 f.),  on  the  basis  of  the  costumes,  gives 
the  same  date  as  the  latter.  Venturi,  III,  160,  remarks:  "Si  e  molto 
discusso  sull'  eta  della  porta  della  Pescheria,  che  pure  mostra  ad  evi- 
denza  la  mano  di  Niccolo,  cooperatore  di  Wiligelmo,  di  lui  piu  giovane 
e  meno  arcaico  etc."  Wiligelmo,  it  should  be  remarked,  worked  on  the 
cathedral  at  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century.    Porter,  III,  48,  says : 


16  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

names  attached  to  them  suggest  an  Arthurian  romance  from  the 
period  of  the  fullest  development  of  the  genre,  viz.,  the  late  twelfth 
or  early  thirteenth  century,32  and  it  accords  with  this  dating 
that  the  architecture  of  the  same  portal  contains  figures  from  the 


"Between  1099  and  1106  were  erected,  of  the  existing  cathedral,  the 
crypt  and  also  part  of  the  facade  with  its  sculptures  and  the  Porta 
della  Pescheria,  but  the  crypt  and  the  Porta  della  Pescheria  were  sub- 
sequently very  materially  altered."  Later  on,  he  again  speaks  of  there 
being  "abundant  contemporary  evidence  that  alterations  and  additions 
to  the  church  were  made  constantly  during  the  XIII  and  XTV  centuries", 
but  he  evidently  does  not  include  the  Arthurian  figures  among  these 
later  additions,  for  in  his  interesting  section,  I,  434 — 438,  on  "Secular 
Subjects"  (including  romances)  in  Lombard  church  architecture,  he  dates 
(p.  436)  these  Arthurian  figures,  "1099  —  1106".  On  the  other  hand, 
quite  recently,  G.  Bertoni,  who  has  made  a  special  study  of  these 
figures,  has  expressed  the  opinion,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XL,  363  (1920) 
that  they  cannot  be  later  than  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century 
and  more  probably  belong  to  the  middle  of  the  century. 

Both  Venturi,  III,  167  and  Porter,  I,  436 f.,  emphasize  the  resem- 
blance of  these  figures  to  those  which  are  found  on  the  southwestern 
side-portal  of  S.  Nicolo  at  Bari  (cp.  Venturi,  Plate  140,  at  m,  163): 
"From  a  central  structure  issue  on  foot  four  men,  two  on  either  side; 
against  them  come  a  series  of  men  on  horseback"  (Porter,  I,  436).  Ana- 
logous, too,  are  figures  at  Bobbio,  and  Porter,  loc.  cit.,  thinks  that  ex- 
cavation of  the  pavement  there  will  throw  light  on  the  Modena  archivolt. 

82  Guenloie,  with  whom  Foerster  identifies  Winlogee,  first  occurs 
in  Yder,  among  the  extant  romances,  and  that  is  dated  by  its  editor 
in  the  second  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Cp.  H.  Gelzer,  Der 
altfranzosische  Yderroman,  p.  LXXIX  (Dresden,  1913;.  To  be  sure, 
it  is  probably  based  on  an  older  romance,  but  the  character  of  the  story 
shows  that  even  this  last  source  did  not  go  beyond  the  latter  part  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  If  Mardoc  is  the  same  as  Meriadoc,  the  same 
applies  here.  Cp.  the  Chevaliers  as  deus  espees,  whose  hero  is  named 
Meriadeus  (=  Meriadoc),  and  the  Latin  romance  Historia  Meriadoci, 
edited  by  J.  D.  Bruce,  Historia  Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii, 
Gottingen  and  Baltimore,  (1913).  Both,  probably,  belong  to  the  second 
quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Mariadok  is  the  name  of  Marc's 
seneschal  in  Thomas'  Tristan  (third  quarter  of  the  twelfth  century), 
but  the  character  is  less  prominent  than  would  seem  to  be  required  by 
the  Modena  Mardoc.  Besides,  the  latter  evidently  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  Tristan  legend. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  17 

French  beast-epic  which  flourished  in  that  period.33  Even  if  the 
early  dating,  however,  is  correct,  here,  as  in  the  previous  case, 
there  is  always  the  possibility  to  be  reckoned  with  that  these 
Arthurian  names  may  have  been  derived  from  oral  tradition 
through  Bretons  or  Normans.34 

Leaving  now  these  scanty  indications  of  what  may  possibly 
be  merely  precipitates,  so  to  speak,  of  tales  transmitted  orally, 
we  come  to  the  later  written  records  of  Arthur  that  have  been  pre- 
served. Whatever  interpretation  we  may  put  upon  the  above- 
mentioned  indications,  unquestionably  the  matiere  de  Bretagne™ 
entered  upor    a  new  phase  of  influence  with  the  publication  of 


83 


Lucien  Foulet,  Le  Roman  de  Renard,  p.  60  (Paris,  1914) 
assigns  to  1152  Nivard's  Latin  poem  Ysengrhnus,  which  he  thinks 
started  the  whole  French  beast-epic.  He  takes  (p.  115)  1165  as  the 
earliest  possible  date  for  any  part  of  the  Roman  de  Renard,  but  he 
assigns  all  branches  but  the  second  to  the  period  after  1170. 

The  sculptors  of  the  figures  may  themselves  have  been  from 
Normandy  or  Brittany,  for  such  workmen  in  the  Middle  Ages  often  found 
employment  in  foreign  countries.  In  any  event,  the  immediate  source 
was  French.  This  is  proved  by  the  French  forms  of  some  of  the  names, 
viz.,  1.  Artus  (Artus  de  Bretania  in  the  inscription),  not  Artur  or 
Arturus.  2.  Galvaginus  (formed  on  Galvagin).  3.  Che  (=  French 
Ke),  not  Caius  (Geoffrey  of  Monmouth).  4.  Winlogee,  not  Winlogea, 
as  the  Latin  form  would  be.  Cp.  Foerster,  op.  cit,  p.  248.  5.  Mar  doc, 
without  Latin  -us. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  Isdernus  is  closer  to  the  Welsh 
Edeyrn  (Edern)  than  to  the  French  Ider  (Idler,  Yder)  in  our  MSS. 
of  Erec,  Yder,  etc.  Cp.  too,  Geoffrey's  Hiderus.  (The  first  s  is,  no  doubt, 
due  to  the  sculptor's  blunder).  Foerster,  ibid.,  plausibly  surmises  that 
Carrado  stands  for  Carradocus  —  only  limitations  of  space,  as  an  in- 
spection of  the  archivolt  shows,  prevented  the  sculptor  from  completing 
the  name. 

85  The  term,  now  in  general  use  for  Arthurian  traditions,  is  taken 
from  the  famous  lines  of  Jean  Bodel,  La  Chanson  des  Saxons,  11.  6ff.: 

"Ne  sont  que.  iii.  matieres  a  nul  home  antandanti 

De  France  et  de  Bretaigne  et  de  Rome  la  grant; 

Et  de  ces.  iij.  matieres  n'i  a  nule  samblant. 

Li  conte  de  Bretaigne  sont  si  vain  et  plaisant; 

Cil  de  Rome  sont  sage  et  de  san  aprenant; 

Cil  de  France  de  voir  chascun  jor  apparant." 
The  poem  was  written  in  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


18  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  Historia  Regum  Britanniae  about  the 
year  1137.36   In  the  dedication  to  this  work,  the  author  remarks 

39  The  date  of  Geoffrey's  work,  as  was  pointed  out  by  Sir  Frederick 
Madden  in  his  article,  "The  Historia  Britonum  of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth", The  ArchaeologicalJournal,  XV,  299ff.  (1858),  is  determined 
by  the  double  dedication  which  is  preserved  in  the  Bern  MS.  of  the 
Historia.  This  MS.,  which  dates  from  about  1160,  still  remains  un- 
published. Unlike  the  other  MSS.,  it  contains  a  double  dedication  to 
King-  Stephen  and  Robert  of  Gloucester.  King  Stephen  is  here  extolled 
in  almost  the  same  words  that  we  find  applied  to  Robert  of  Gloucester 
in  the  other  MSS.  Robert,  himself,  is  addressed  as  altera  regni  nostri 
columna  and  is  eulogized  at  greater  length  in  terms  of  the  most  exalted 
flattery.  The  text  of  this  important  preface  is  given  in  full  in  W.  L. 
Jones'  above-mentioned  paper.  Cp.  ibid.,  p.  65,  note.  Now,  as  Madden 
remarks,  this  dedication,  if  genuine  —  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  it  is  so  —  must  have  been  written  between  April,  1136  and 
May  1138,  for  only  during  this  period  were  Stephen  and  Robert 
of  Gloucester  on  friendly  terms.  From  the  last-named  date  down  to 
his  death  in  1147  Robert  was  the  principal  supporter  of  the  cause  of 
Queen  Matilda  in  her  strife  with  Stephen,  and  it  is,  of  course,  out  of 
the  question  that  under  these  circumstances  Geoffrey  should  have  coupled 
his  name  with  that  of  the  king  in  a  joint  dedication.  The  fact  that 
Henry  of  Huntingdon,  writing  in  January,  1139,  was  able  to  give  a 
summary  of  Geoffrey's  Historia  in  his  letter  to  Warinus  gives  us  that 
year  —  or  better,  1138  —  as  the  terminus  ad  quern  for  the  work.  Con- 
firmatory of  Madden's  dating  of  the  Historia  is  A.  Leitzmann's  obser- 
vation, that  Geoffrey,  at  the  end  of  his  dedication,  refers  to  Henry  I 
as  dead,  the  "alteram  Henricum*'  of  that  passage  being  really  that 
monarch  (who  died  on  Dec.  1,  1135),  and  not  Henry  H,  as  has  often 
been  thought.  See  Leitzmann's  "Bemerkungen  zu  Galfrid  von  Mon- 
mouth", Archiv  filr  das  Studium  der  neueren  Spraehen,  vol.  134, 
pp.  373ff.  (1916). 

The  Latinity  of  the  Bern  MS.  is  less  polished  than  that  of  the 
other  MSS.,  but,  according  to  Professor  Jones,  who  has  collated  it  with 
San  Marte's  edition  (Halle,  1854),  it  does  not  differ  in  any  essential 
from  the  current  text. 

Owing  to  differences  in  Henry  of  Huntingdon's  summary,  the  idea 
formerly  prevailed  that  there  was  a  (lost)  earlier  recension  of  Geoffrey's 
Historia.  R.  H.  Fletcher,  however,  in  his  "Two  notes  on  the  Historia 
Begum  Britanniae  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,"  PMLA  (Publications 
of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America),  XVI,  46  Iff.  (1901), 
has  shown  that  this  is  incorrect.  For  the  text  of  Henry's  Letter  to 
Warinus  see  the  edition  of  Robert  de  Torigni's  chronicle  by  Leopold 
Delisle,  I,   97ff.  (2  vols.  Rouen,  1872—8). 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  19 

that  he  had  often  marvelled  at  the  little  that  had  been  recorded 
of  the  kings  that  had  dwelt  in  Britain  before  the  Incarnation  of 
Christ  and  even  concerning  Arthur  and  his  successors  who  lived 
after  the  Incarnation.  "Now  whilst  I  was  thus  thinking  upon  such 
matters,  Walter,  Archdeacon  of  Oxford,  a  man  learned  not  only 
in  the  art  of  eloquence,  but  in  the  histories  of  foreign  lands,  offered 
me  a  certain  most  ancient  book  in  the  British  language  (quendam 
Britannici  sermonis  librum  vetustissimum)  that  did  set  forth  the 
doings  of  them  all  in  due  succession  and  order  from  Brutus,  the 
first  king  of  the  Britons,  onward  to  Cadwallader,  the  son  of  Cad- 
wallo,  all  told  in  stories  of  exceeding  beauty."  Geoffrey's  own 
work  purports  to  be  his  translation  of  this  ancient  book.  It  is 
divided  into  twelve  books,  of  which  Book  VII  is  really  an  earlier 
work  of  the  same  author,   —   viz.    the  pretended  prophecies  of 

Merlin and  it  introduces  into  European  literature  a  host  of 

new  characters  such  as  Lear,  Cymbeline,  Locrine,  etc.,  whom  the 
poets  of  later  ages  were  destined  to  render  famous.  Here  in  the 
Historia  (Book  VIII,  ch.  14  to  Book  XI,  ch.  2),  then,  for  the  first 
time,  we  have  related  in  pseudo-historical  form,  the  glories  of 
Uther  Pendragon  and  Arthur,  his  son,  the  latter's  birth  and  fic- 
titious conquests  extending  as  far  as  Rome,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  Baltic,  on  the  other,  until  his  downfall  in  his  last  battle 
with  Mordred  and  his  translation  to  Avalon.  Merlin's  marvels 
of  enchantment  and  prophecy,  Gawain's  valorous  deeds,  and  Guine- 
vere's (Guanhamara's)  marital  disloyalty  all  form,  likewise,  a  part 
of  the  story.  The  author  of  this  book,  though  born  in  Wales,  was 
probably  the  son  of  a  Breton  —  a  member  of  the  Norman  garri- 
son stationed  at  Monmouth.37  Between  the  years  1129  and  1151 
he  was  living  in  the  neighborhood  of  Oxford  —  probably  as  a 
canon  of  St.  George's  in  the  Castle  of  Oxford.38   Some  time  sub- 

A  man  named  Geoffrey  at  this  time  would  hardly  be  a  Welshman. 
Cp.  J.  E.  Lloyd's  History  of  Wales  down  to  the  Edwardian  Con- 
quest, II,  524  (2  vols.  Oxford,  1911).  Geoffrey  signed  himself  Gal- 
fridus  Artur  —   so  his  father  was  named  Arthur. 

For  Geoffrey's  connection  with  Oxford,  cp.  the  documents  in 
which  he  figures  as  a  witness  (some  of  them  new)  discussed  by  H.  Salter, 
"Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  Oxford,"  English  Historical  Review,  XXXIV, 
382  ff.  (1919).     The  best  summary  of  all  that  was  previously  known 


20  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sequent  to  1140  he  was  appointed  an  archdeaconry  in  the  dio- 
cese of  Llandaff,  and  on  Feb.  24,  1152,  after  having  been  or- 
dained priest  only  eight  days  before,  he  was  made  bishop  of  St. 
Asaph  in  his  native  land,  but  died  two  years  later,  before  he  had 
actually  assumed  the  duties  of  his  office.  To  few  works  in  the 
history  of  literature  can  the  much-abused  term,  "  epoch-making, " 
be  so  justly  applied  as  to  Geoffrey's  Historia.  Under  any  suppo- 
sition, it  was  indubitably  the  most  notable  production  in  the  Ar- 
thurian field  that  had  appeared  up  to  that  date,  and,  in  all  pro- 
bability, it  was  owing  to  the  influence  of  this  book,  direct  and 
indirect,  that  the  Arthurian  stories  leapt  into  general  literary 
popularity  just  at  this  time.  The  conception  of  Arthur  as  a  great 
mediaeval  monarch,  the  ideal  representative  of  chivalry  —  not 
a  merely  fairy-tale  king  — ■  originated,  we  may  say,  entirely  with 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  .  He  succeeded  in  embodying  this  idea 
in  his  work  in  a  truly  imposing  literary  form,  and  the  pretended 
historical  character  of  the  Historia  gave  a  dignity  to  the  theme 
which  it  had  not  hitherto  possessed.  We  need  not  take  very  seri- 
ously the  author's  declaration  in  his  dedication  to  Robert,  Earl 
of  Gloucester,  that  he  was  translating  into  Latin  an  old  book  in 
the  British  language  furnished  him  by  his  friend  Walter,  Arch- 
deacon of  Oxford.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  had  a  more  than 
superficial  acquaintance  with  Welsh39  and  probably  he  knew  Bre- 
ton no  better.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  addition  to  some  borrowings 
from  oral  traditions,  not  exclusively  of  the  Celts,40  he  drew  ma- 
concerning  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  is  W.  Lewis  Jones'  paper  on  him  in 
the  Transactions  of  the  Honourable  Society  of  Cymmrodorion  for 
the  session,  1898—99,  pp.  52 ff.  Cp.  too,  H.  L.  D.  Ward's  Catalogue 
of  Romances  in  the  Department  of  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum, 
I,  203 ff.  (1883)  and  E.  Windisch,  Das  Keltische  Britannien  bis  zu 
Kaiser  Artur,  pp.  123ff.  (Leipzig,  1912). 

39  Cp.  Ward's  Catalogue  of  Romances  in  the  Department  of 
MSS.  in  the  British  Museum,  I,  205. 

40  In  his  "Bretonische  Elemente  in  der  Arthursage  des  Gottfried 
von  Monmouth",  Zs.  f  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lit,  XII1,  231ff.  (1890),  H.  Zimmer 
endeavors  to  prove  from  the  forms  of  certain  Arthurian  names  that 
Geoffrey  used  Armorican  sources  as  well  as  Welsh  —  more  specifically, 
that  he  derived  such  materials  from  men  who  were  Bretons  by  race, 
hut  who  spoke  French  exclusively,  or,  at  least,   were  bilingual.     The 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  21 

terials  from  Gildas,  Nennius,  Bede,  Livy  and  others  —  in  fine, 
from  any  quarter  he  chose,  added  to  these  materials  from  his  own 


most  important  names  are  Eventus  (=  Yvain),  Walgainus,  Walguainus 
(=  Gawain,  wha  in  Welsh  is  called  Gwalchmei),  Caliburnus  (=  Arthur's 
sword,  Excalibur,  which  in  Old  French  is  called  Calibor(e),  Escalibor(e), 
etc.).  In  the  same  journal,  XIII1,  41,  note  1,  (1891),  he  adds  Ritho 
to  the  list  of  such  names.  F.  Lot,  however,  has  pointed  out,  Romania, 
XXV,  Iff.  (1896),  that  Eweint,  of  which  Eventus  is  the  Latinized 
form,  occurs  as  early  as  the  tenth  century  in  Welsh  genealogies  and 
that  Caliburnus  is  as  difficult  to  explain  on  the  hypothesis  of  Armorican 
origin  as  on  that  of  Welsh  origin.  On  the  other  hand,  he  acknowledges 
that  Walgainus  is  based  rather  on  French  Gauvain  (Gaugain)  than 
on  Welsh  Gwalchmei  or  Breton  Walchmoe.  In  that  case,  however, 
I  may  remark,  Geoffrey  could  have  derived  it  as  well  from  a  Frenchman 
or  from  a  French  book  as  from  a  Breton.  Lot,  moreover,  cites  the 
form  Walven  for  Gawain  in  William  of  Malmesbury's  description  (De 
gestis  Begum  Angliae,  III,  under  the  date  1086)  of  Gawain's  tomb  in 
the  Welsh  province  Ros.  Here  it  is  stated  that  Gawain  was  ruler  over 
Waluuithia  (=  Galloway),  but  was  expelled  from  his  kingdom  by 
the  brother  and  nephew  of  Hengist.  Walven,  however,  probably  rests 
on  French  Walwains,  and  Lot,  loc.  cit.,  conjectures  that  the  tomb  in 
question  was  really  that  of  Maelgwn,  and  that  the  new  identification 
was  suggested  by  the  name  of  a  neighboring  district,  viz.,  Castell 
Gwalchmai  (=  Gawain's  Castle).  In  any  event,  as  Brugger,  Zs.  f. 
frz.  Spr.  u.  Lit,  XXXHI2,  59 f.  (including  p.  60,  note  3)  (1908),  remarks, 
the  connection  of  Gawain  with  Walweitha  (Walwithia)  is,  no  doubt, 
"eine  gelehrte  Erfindung",  and,  although  the  Welsh  called  Geoffrey's 
Walgainus  (French  Gauvain)  by  the  name  of  Gwalchmei,  it  still 
remains  uncertain  whether  the  former  is  of  Welsh  origin,  although  this 
is  a  priori  probable.  In  "Arthurian  Notes",  MLN,  XVII,  cols.  277 f. 
(1902)  W.  W.  Newell  suggests  that  Gawain's  name  (cp.  Walwen)  is 
formed  from  Walweitha,  just  as  Geoffrey  formed  Locrin  from  Loegria 
and  that  Geoffrey  represented  him  as  the  son  of  Lot  (Loth),  because 
of  the  usual  association  of  Lothian  and  Galloway.  This  theory,  however, 
seems  hardly  admissible. 

There  is,  of  course,  nothing  surprising  in  Geoffrey's  use  of  French 
sources.  Apart  from  the  Arthurian  materials  under  discussion,  Lot,  loc. 
cit,  points  out  his  use  of  such  sources  in  the  episodes  of  Gormond 
(XI,  8—10,  XII,  2)  and  Mont  St.  Michel  (X,  3).  It  is  evident,  too, 
from  the  same  scholar's  discussion,  Romania,  XXX,  llff.  (1901)  that 
among  Geoffrey's  Celtic  sources  some  were  Cornish.  The  names  of  the 
Cornish  dukes,  Cador  and  Gorlois,  prove  this.  So,  too,  with  the  name 
Modredus;  Cp.  Lot,  Romania,  XXV,  2  and  Loth's  Mabinogion*,  II, 


22  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

imagination  —  the  most  important  element  of  all  —  and  moulded 
the  whole  into  the  pseudo-historical  wort  which  we  know.41  In- 
deed, it  is  hardly  open  to  question  that  Geoffrey's  narrative  re- 
flects, in  many  particulars,  even  actual  historical  events  of  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries42  —  more  especially,  events  of  Nor- 

238,  note  1.  Zimmer  argues,  Zs.  f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Lit.,  XII1,  254 f.  that 
it  might  be  also  a  Breton  form  of  the  twelfth  or  thirteenth  century, 
but  that  is  too  late  for  Geoffrey's  source. 

San  Marte  (edition  of  Geoffrey's  Historia,  pp.  LXXIIff.),  like  some 
other  students  of  his  time  and  of  earlier  times,  believed  that  the  Welsh 
Brut  Tysilio  was  one  of  the  sources  of  Geoffrey's  Historia.  But  the 
reverse  is  undoubtedly  true,  as  has  been  shown  by  F.  Zarncke  and 
B.  Ten  Brink  in  Ebert's  Jahrbuch  fur  englische  und  romanische 
Philologie.  Cp.  the  former's  article,  "Uber  das  Verhaltnis  des  Brut  y 
Tysilio  zu  Galfrid's  Hist.  Reg.  Brit.",  V,  249ff.  (1863),  and  the  latter's 
"Wace  und  Galfrid  von  Monmouth",  IX,  241  ff.  (1868).  For  some 
additional  points  see,  too,  G.  Heeger:  Uber  die  Trojanersage  der Britten, 
79f.  (Munich,  1886). 

Altogether,  I  agree  with  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lit,  XXXII2, 
127  (1908),  that  Geoffrey  borrowed  names  from  Welsh  tradition,  but 
little  else.  There  are,  doubtless,  some  exceptions,  like  the  story  of 
King  Leir  (Lear)  and  his  ungrateful  daughters  (II,  11  — 15).  This  story, 
too,  has  analogues,  it  is  true,  outside  of  Celtic  territory.  Cp.  J.  Bolte 
and  G.  Polivka,  Anmerkungen  zu  den  Kinder-  und  Hausmarchen 
der  Briider  Grimm,  II,  47 ff.  (3  vols.  Leipzig,  1913—1915),  and 
Miss  C.  A.  Harper,  "A  King  Lear  Analogue"',  The  Nation,  (New  York) 
for  Feb.  10,  1916  (Correspondence  Supplement,  p.  17).  The  first  is  a 
German,  the  second  an  Indian  folktale.  The  German  is  closer  to  Geof- 
frey. In  the  Indian  tale  —  entitled  The  Hireling  Husband  and  printed 
by  Shovona  Devi  in  her  collection,  The  Orient  Pearls  (London,  1815)  — 
the  choleric  old  king  has  seven  sons  and  the  youngest  fills  the  role  of 
Cordeilla  (Cordelia). 

E.  G.  Cox's  "King  Lear  in  Celtic  Tradition",  MLN,  XXIV,  Iff. 
(1909),  gives  no  parallels  to  this  immortal  story.  On  the  legend  in 
general,  cp.  W.  Perrett,  The  Story  of  King  Lear:  Palaestra,  no.  35 
(Berlin,   1904). 

On  Geoffrey's  sources,  in  general,  see  R.  H.  Fletcher,  Arthurian 
Material  in  the  Chronicles,  ch.  3,  and  PMLA,  XVI,  469ff.  (1901). 
His  debt  to  Virgil  has  been  investigated  by  H.  Tausendfreund,  Vergil 
und  Gottfried  von  Monmouth,  Halle,  1913,  and  his  debt  to  the  Old 
Testament  by  Paul  Feuerherd,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  und  das  Alte 
Testament,  ibid.,   1915. 

So  Zimmer,  Gott.  G.  A.  for  Oct.  1890,  pp.  824ff.    According 


42 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  23 

man  history  —  of  the  reigns  of  William  the  Conqueror  and  his 
successors.  Thus  he  gives  Arthur  in  the  beginning  of  the  latter's 
career  an  imaginary  King  Hoel  of  Brittany  with  15,000  Bretons 
as  allies,  no  doubt,  because  a  large  number  of  Breton  troops  aided 
William  the  Conqueror  in  his  invasion  of  England  —  these  troops 
being  led  by  the  nephews  of  Count  Hoel,  who  was  then  ruler  of 
Brittany.  Similarly,  the  way  in  which  Arthur  parcels  out  Gaul 
among  his  followers  was  doubtless  suggested  by  the  Conqueror's 
distribution  of  English  lands  among  his  companions  in  arms.  The 
prominence  that  Winchester  and  Carlisle  have  in  the  Arthurian 
narratives  of  Geoffrey  is  also  plainly  due  to  the  importance  which 
these  cities  possessed  in  Geoffrey's  own  time.  The  former,  though 
no  longer  the  capital  of  England,  as  in  Anglo-Saxon  days,  was 
often  the  residence  of  the  Norman  kings,  and  Carlisle  under  Wil- 
liam Rufus  had  become  one  of  the  strong  places  of  the  kingdom. 
In  writing  his  history,  Geoffrey's  aim  was  primarily  to  exalt 
his  own  race.  Nothing  is  more  striking  about  the  Normans  than 
the  interest  which  they  took  in  their  past  and  a  whole  crop  of 
chronicles  was  the  result  of  this  interest.  Geoffrey  opposes  now 
to  these  Norman  chronicles  a  chronicle  of  the  Celts  with  Arthur 
as  the  great  hero.  In  an  age  when  even  such  a  man  as  Lanfranc, 
the  great  Norman  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  could  connive  at 
forgery  it  is  not  surprising  that  a  Celtic  ecclesiastic,  with  the 
lively  fancy  of  his  race,  should  palm  off  a  hoax  like  the  Historia 
on  the  public  of  his  time.  That  public  was,  in  the  main,  uncriti- 
cal and  swallowed  this  pretended  history  as  it  swallowed  the  Con- 
stitutions of  Cons  tan  tine,  which  were  invented  to  justify  the  tem- 
poral claims  of  the  papacy.43  Moreover,  it  touched  the  vanity  of  the 


to  Fletcher  (second  citation  in  the  previous  note),  the  kernel  of  the 
Belinus  and  Brennius  episode  of  the  Historia,  III,  1  — 10,  was  supplied 
by  the  feud  between  Harold,  the  last  Anglo-Saxon  king,  and  his  brother, 
Tostig. 

Although  most  mediaeval  readers  accepted  Geoffrey's  Historia 
as  authentic,  there  were  writers  already  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
century  who  voiced  their  scepticism  —  so  William  of  Newburgh  and 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  especially,  in  passages  that  have  been  often  quoted. 
See  the  editions  of  their  respective  works  in  the  Rolls  Series,  Vol.  I, 
of  the  Chronicles  of  Stephen,  etc.  (1884),  William's  Prooemium,  and 


24  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Anglo-Norman  nobility,  who  were  now  identified  with  Great  Bri- 
tain, that  they  could  claim  a  hero  who  was  the  equal,  if  not  the  su- 
perior, of  Charlemagne,  the  great  hero  of  their  Continental  kins- 
men. The  consequence  of  all  this  was  that  Geoffrey's  Historia 
had  an  instantaneous  and  prodigious  success  and  it  stimulated  im- 
mensely whatever  interest  there  may  already  have  been  in  Arthur 
and  his  companions. 

The  first  sign  of  Geoffrey's  influence  on  the  vernacular  lite- 
rature appears  in  the  metrical  chronicles.  Between  1147  and  1151 
Geffrei  Gaimar  had  used  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  in  compiling 
a  chronicle  of  Great  Britain  in  French  verse.44  His  own  statement 
is  that  he  followed  "the  good  book  of  Oxford  which  belonged  to 
Walter  the  Archdeacon",  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  this  really 
means  Geoffrey's  Historia.  The  work  was  undertaken  at  the  in- 
stance of  Constance,  wife  of  Ralph  Fitz-Gilbert,  an  Anglo-Norman 
noble  to  whom  Gaimar  was  chaplain.  Women  rarely  understood 
Latin  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  so  just  as  vernacular  versions  of 
Biblical  books  were  often  composed  for  their  benefit  in  that  period, 
so  too  with  the  chronicles. 


Giraldus'  Opera,  VI,  57 f.  (1868)  —  also,  the  summaries  of  these 
passages  in  Fletcher,  op.  cit,  pp.  101  f.  and  180,  respectively.  Among 
modern  scholars  who  have  expressed  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  Geoffrey's 
liber  are  H.  L.  D.  Ward,  "Postscript  to  the  article  upon  Geoffrey  in 
the  Catalogue  of  Romances,  Vol.  I  (1883),"  Anglia,  XXIV,  383ff. 
(1901),  E.  Windisch,  Das  Keltische  Brittanien  bis  zu  Kaiser  Arthur, 
pp.  126ff.,  (1912),  and  A.  Leitzmann,  op.  cit,  pp.  3751  (1916).  Ward 
conjectures  that  the  liber  consisted  of  an  Old-Welsh  MS.  containing 
many  British  genealogies  and  several  historical  glosses,  brought  home 
from  Brittany  by  Archdeacon  Walter.  Windisch  and  Leitzmann  argue 
that  Geoffrey  would  not  have  dared  to  pass  off  on  Robert  of  Gloucester 
—  the  most  powerful  man  in  the  kingdom  —  so  audacious  an  invention. 
But  the  examples  cited  above  show  to  what  length  mediaeval  audacity 
might  go  in  such  matters,  and,  besides,  Robert  of  Gloucester,  though 
cognizant  of  the  fraud,  may  not  have  taken  the  matter  seriously,  or 
may  have  even  accepted  the  Historia  gladly  as  a  sort  of  national  epos. 
As  such  it  has  been  interpreted  with  some  plausibility  by  Sebastian 
Evans  in  his  translation  of  the  Historia,  pp.  357 ff.  (London,  1904). 
44  UEstorie  oles  Engles,  edited  by  T.  D.  Hardy  and  C.  T.  Martin 
for  the  Rolls  Series,  2  vols.,  (London,  1889),  is  all  that  survives  of  it. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  25 

The  MSS.  of  Gaimar's  chronicle  preserve  only  the  later  por- 
tion of  the  work,  —  L'Estorie  des  Engles,  as  it  is  called.  To  be 
sure,  the  so-called  Munich  Brut,*5  which  appears  to  be  of  the 
same  date,  is  by  some  eminent  scholars  supposed  to  be  a  fragment 
of  the  earlier  portion.  Even  this  fragment,  however,  ends  before 
it  reaches  the  reign  of  Arthur.  The  only  part  of  the  extant  por- 
tion of  Gaimar's  Chronicle,  then,  that  contains  any  mention  of 
Arthur  is  the  story  of  Havelock  which  he  has  inserted  in  his  poem. 
The  Arthurian  allusions  here  accord  substantially  with  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth. 

Of  far  greater  importance,  however,  was  the  paraphrase  com- 
pleted by  Wace  in  1155  —  the  poem  which  is  commonly  called 
the  Roman  de  Brut,  or  simply,  Brut**  although  the  author's  own 
name  for  it  was  Geste  des  Bretons.  There  is  no  dedication  of  it 
preserved  in  the  MSS.,  but  the  English  poet,  Layamon  (11.  42 ff.), 
tells  us  that  Wace  "gave  it  to  the  noble  Eleanor,  who  was  the 


46  Edited  by  K.  Hoffmann  and  K.  Vollmbller,  Halle,  1877.  There 
is  still  another  fragmentary  French  version  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 
in  monorhymed  laisses  preserved  in  M.  S.  Harley,  1605  (British  Museum). 
Cp.  Ward,  Catalogue  of  Romances,  I,  272 ff.  and  Otto  Wendeburg, 
Ueber  die  Bearbeitung  von  Gottfried  von  Monmouths  Historia  Begum 
Britanniae  in  der  HS.  Brit.  Mus.  Harl.  1605.  Braunschweig,  1881 
(Erlanger  Diss.).  H.  Suchier,  LB,  HI,  107f.  (1882),  pronounces  the 
dialect  Picard  and  the  date  not  much  later  than  Wace.  The  fragments 
have  no  especial  interest.  The  condition  of  this  version  and  of  the 
Munich  Brut  (both  preserved  in  fragmentary  and  unique  MSS.)  shows, 
however,   how   easily  the  French  original  of  Layamon   could  be  lost. 

46  Edited  by  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  2  vols.,  Rouen,  1836—1838. 
F.  M.  Warden,  MLN,  XTV,  95,  points  out  that  the  numbering  in  this 
edition  is  wrong  —  130  lines  too  high.  A  new  edition  of  this  work 
based  on  all  the  MSS.  is  a  great  desideratum.  Brut  is  the  French 
form  of  Brutus,  name  of  the  first  king  of  Britain,  according  to  Geof- 
frey. For  Wace's  life,  cp.  especially,  G.  Paris,  Romania,  IX,  592  ff. 
(1880).  He  was  born  in  the  island  of  Jersey  about  1100  —  was  a 
canon  of  Bayeux  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life.  He  is  also  well  cha- 
racterized by  G.  Paris  in  his  MUanges,  I,  85  f.  For  a  full  bibliography 
of  Wace,  cp.  Annette  B.  Hopkins,  The  Influence  of  Wace  on  the 
Arthurian  Romances  of  Crestien  de  Troies,  University  of  Chicago 
dissertation,  1913,  p.  10,  note  24  a. 


26  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

high  King  Henry's  queen"  —  that  is  to  say,  the  wife  of  Henry  II 
of  England,  who  ascended  the  throne  in  1154. 

A  detailed  study  of  Wace's  relation  to  Geoffrey47  proves  that 
he  followed  his  original  closely,  as  far  as  the  facts  are  concerned.48 
Allusions  which  we  shall  consider  later  on  in  another  connection  show 
that  he  knew  of  an  oral  tradition  of  Arthur  outside  of  Geoffrey,  but 
he  adds  practically  no  new  material  to  that  which  his  original 
offered  and  so  the  advantage  which  his  work  has  over  Geoffrey's 
is  merely  in  its  superior  vivacity  and  vividness.  A  French  poem 
in  octosyllabic  couplets  was  likely  to  be  livelier  than  a  pseudo- 
chronicle  in  the  artificial  Latin  prose  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
Wace's  style,  as  it  happens,  is  particularly  lively,  so  that  Geoffrey's 
legends  and  fictions  are  now  cast  in  the  form  which  was  really 
appropriate  to  them  —  namely,  that  of  a  metrical  romance.49 
He  substitutes  direct  for  indirect  discourse,  is  fond  of  rhetorical 
questions  and  exclamations,  and  amplifies,  especially,  the  des- 
criptions of  battles  and  festivities.  Even  in  respect  to  style,  then, 
Wace  is  an  important  factor  in  the  development  of  the  Arthurian 
romances.  He  accordingly  contributed  largely  to  the  spread  of  interest 
in  the  Arthurian  stories,  for  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  well  as  now,  more 
people  could  enjoy  a  tale  in  the  vernacular  than  in  Latin.  But  he 
influenced  Arthurian  literature  in  another  way,  also  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  genre  of  the  Brut  — 50  the  chronicle  of  British  history 


47 


Cp.  Fletcher,  Arthurian  Material  in  the  Chronicles,  pp.  127ff., 
Alfred  Ulbrich's,  "Ueber  das  Verhaltnis  von  Wace's  Roman  de  Brut  zu 
seiner  Quelle,  der  Historia  regum  Britanniae  des  Gottfried  von  Mon- 
mouth", Romanische  Forschungen,  XXVI,  181  ff.  (Erlangen,  1908), 
and  Leo  Waldner,  Wace's  Brut  und  seine  Quellen.  Jena  diss.  (Karls- 
ruhe,  1914). 

48  For  the  main  additions  made  by  Wace,  cp.  Waldner,  pp.  120ff. 

49  Substantially  true  is  the  remark  of  the  Abbe  de  la  Rue,  who 
calls  Wace's  Brut  "incontestablement  le  premier  Roman  de  la  Table 
Ronde."  See  his  Essais  historiques  sur  les  bardes,  les  jongleurs  et 
les  trouveres  normands  et  anglo-normands,  etc.,  I,  50  (3  vols.,  Caen, 
1834).  M.  Wilmotte,  Le  Moyen  Age,  XXVII,  lOOf.  (1914),  makes 
the  same  observation. 

60  The  term,  Brut,  in  the  sense  of  chronicle,  was  also  adopted 
from  the  French  by  the  Welsh,  and  so  we  have  in  Welsh  the  Brut 
Tysilio,  Gwentian  Brut,  etc. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  27 

which  follows  the  Geoff reyan  tradition  and  makes  a  fabulous  Bru- 
tus the  founder  of  the  kingdom  —  did  not  end  with  him.  Curi- 
ously enough,  the  most  important  representatives  of  this  genre 
actually  preserved  are  not  in  French,  but  in  English;  neverthe- 
less, the  English  poems  undoubtedly  are  based  on  (lost)  French 
originals.  The  poems  in  question  are,  1.  Layamon's  paraphrase 
of  Wace,  which  it  is  common  to  call,  after  Sir  Frederick  Madden 's 
example,  Layamon's  Brut  — 51  a  poem  which  was  finished  not 
long  before  1205.  2.  The  alliterative  Morte  Arthure52  of  the  four- 
teenth century,  which  has  often  been  ascribed  — 53  wrongly,  no 
doubt  —  to  the  Scotch  poet,  Huchown  of  the  Awle  Ryale.  In 
both  of  these  poems  the  principal  interest  is  pseudo-historical. 
Indeed,  the  narrative  of  the  second  is  almost  wholly  taken  up  with 
the  continental  wars  of  Arthur  and  his  final  conflict  with  Mord- 
red  —  that  is,  selected  episodes  of  some  lost  Brut.  The  spirit  is, 
therefore,  Considerably  nearer  that  of  the  chansons  de  geste  or 
poems  of  the  Charlemagne  cycle  than  is  the  case  with  the  Arthu- 
rian romances  proper.  Indeed,  the  encounter  of  Gawain  and  the 
Saracen  prince,  Priamus,  together  with  the  latter's  conversion  to 
Christianity  in  the  Morte  Arthure,  is  actually  drawn  from  Fiera- 
bras,5i  one  of  the  most  famous  of  the  chansons  de  geste.   More- 


61  The  only  edition  is  Madden's,  in  3  vols.  (London,  1847),  for 
the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  London.  A  complete  bibliography  of 
Layamon  down  to  1906  was  published  by  B.  S.  Monroe,  Journal  oj 
English  and  Germanic  Philology,  VII,  no.  1,  pp.  139ff.  (1908).  For 
the  critical  literature  since  then,  cp.  J.  E.  Wells,  A  Manual  of  the 
Writings  in  Middle  English,  1050 — 1400  (Yale  University  Press, 
1916),  and  the  supplements  thereto.  Layamon's  terminus  a  quo  is 
1189,  since  he  refers  I,  3,  to  Henry  II  as  dead;  his  terminus  ad 
quern  is  1205,  date  of  the  crisis  over  the  collection  of  Peter's  pence, 
which,  contrary  to  Madden,  seems  in  the  allusion  to  this  tax,  III,  286, 
unknown  to  him. 

62  The  latest  and  best  edition  is  Erik  Bjorkman's  (Heidelberg  and 
New  York,  1915),  in  Morsbach  and  Holthausen's  Alt-  und  mittel- 
englische  Texte,  no.  9.     The  Introduction  contains  a  full  bibliography. 

63  Cp.,  for  example,  G.  Neilson,  Huchown  of  the  Aivle  Ilyale, 
(Glasgow,  1902). 

64  Cp.  P.  H.  Griffith,  "Malory,  Morte  Arthure,  and  Fierabras"', 
Anglia,  XXXII,  389  ff.  (1909). 


28  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

over,  the  parts  played  in  the  story  by  Lancelot,  Gawain,  and  others 
show  plainly  the  influence  of  the  fully  developed  Arthurian  ro- 
mances; and  there  is  nothing  surprising  in  this,  seeing  that  the 
alliterative  poem  belongs  to  the  fourteenth  century.  But  in  its 
essentials  the  Morte  Arthure  is  based  on  a  lost  Brut.55 

Of  far  greater  importance,  however,  in  this  connection  is 
Layamon's  Brut,  which  is  a  specimen  of  a  metrical  chronicle  pre- 
served in  its  entirety.  At  the  beginning  of  his  poem  Layamon 
gives  as  his  sources  "the  English  book  that  Saint  Bede  made, 
another,  in  Latin,  that  Saint  Albin  made  and  the  fair  Austin  who 
brought  baptism  in  hither"  (i.  e.  St.  Augustine,  the  missionary), 
and,  lastly,  Wace.  It  is  of  little  importance  that  he  has  cited 
here  other  books  besides  Wace.  His  poem  does  not  show  any  use 
of  such  books  and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  took  over  me- 
chanically from  his  French  original  this  citation  of  authorities.56 
With  regard  to  the  question  of  his  relations  to  Wace,  Layamon's 
poem  is  about  double  the  length  of  Wace's:  the  one  contains  so- 
mething upwards  of  15000  lines,  the  other  something  upwards 
of  32000.57   Until  quite  recently  it  has  been  the  common  assump- 

55  On  its  sources  see  P.  Branscheid,  "Ueber  die  Quellen  des  stab- 
reimenden  Morte  Arthure",  Angjia,  Anzeiger,  VIII,  179ff.  (1885)  and, 
especially,  R.  Imelmann's  treatise,  named  in  the  next  note.  Branscheid's 
idea  that  Layamon  is  a  source  of  the  poem  is  certainly  wrong. 

fie  In  his  treatise,  Layamon,  Versuch  ilber  seine  Quellen  (Berlin, 
1906),  p.  17,  R.  Imelmann  has  pointed  out  that  this  coupling  of  Wace 
and  Bede  as  authorities  is  found  in  other  chronicles  which  relate  the 
history  of  Great  Britain  under  Anglo-Saxon  as  well  as  Celtic  rule.  The 
addition  of  Albin  the  abbot,  who  died  at  Canterbury  in  732,  and 
St.  Augustine  to  the  list  of  authorities  was  also,  no  doubt,  already  in 
Layamon's  original.  And  this  addition  is  not  hard  to  explain  —  for 
Bede  incorporates  in  his  work  the  long  interrogatories  which  St.  Augustine 
addressed  to  Pope  Gregory  asking  for  instructions  as  to  how  he  should 
proceed  in  his  mission  of  converting  the  Anglo-Saxons,  and  he  still 
further  speaks  of  Abbot  Albin  in  his  Preface  as  auctor  ante  omnes 
atque  adjutor  opusculi  hujus.  So  Albin  and  Augustine  were  to  a 
certain  degree  part-authors  of  his  Ecclesiastical  History.  It  was  an 
easy  blunder,  of  which  the  Middle  Ages  furnishes  many  examples,  to 
make  them  now  the  authors  of  a  separate  work,  although  Augustine 
died,  of  course,  before  Albin  was  born. 

Wace's  poem  is  written  in  octosyllabic  couplets  —  which  became 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  29 

tion  that  the  expansions  of  the  English  poem  were  due  to  Laya- 
mon  himself  and  that  its  author,  who  was  a  priest  at  Arley-Regis 
(modern  Ernley)  on  the  Severn  in  Worcestershire,  not  far  from 
the  Welsh  border,  had  derived  the  most  remarkable  of  these  ex- 
pansions from  Welsh  oral  tradition.58  In  the  light  of  recent  re- 
search, however,  it  is  no  longer  open  to  doubt  that  this  assumption 
was  mistaken  and  that  Layamon  was  merely  following  an  ex- 
panded (French)   version  of  Wace,  now  lost.59    As  long  as  the 


the  regular  form  of  the  French  Arthurian  romances;  Layamon's  in  allite- 
rative verse,  but  in  a  somewhat  disintegrated  form  and  with  frequent 
admixture  of  rhyme. 

ft8  Such  was  the  view  enunciated  by  Sir  Frederick  Madden  in 
editing  Layamon's  poem  and  it  has  found  especial  advocates,  also,  in 
R.  Wuelcker,  "Ueber  die  Quellen  Layamon's",  Paul  and  Braune's  Bei- 
trage,  III,  524ff.  (1876)  and  in  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  "Welsh  Traditions 
in  Layamon's  Brut",  MPh.,  I,   95 ff.  (1903). 

69  R.  Imelmann,  in  the  above-mentioned  treatise,  was  the  first 
scholar  to  propose  this  view.  See,  too,  J.  D.  Bruce,  "Some  proper 
names  in  Layamon's  Brut,  not  represented  in  Wace  or  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth",  MLN,  XXVI,  65 ff.  (1911).  According  to  Imelmann,  Laya- 
mon's original  was  an  enlargement  of  Wace  by  combination  with 
material  drawn  from  Gaimar.  He  imagines,  moreover,  that  the  text 
which  resulted  from  this  combination  still  further  underwent  the  in- 
fluence of  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu.  But  the  latter  was  certainly  later 
than  Layamon's  source  —  later,  indeed,  probably  than  Layamon.  It 
is  to  be  observed  that  other  poems  of  Wace's  underwent  expansion  in 
the  way  that  we  are  here  assuming  for  his  Brut,  viz.  his  Conception 
and  Assumption.  For  a  version  of  the  former,  expanded  by  the  inter- 
polation of  passages  from  another  French  poem,  Uhistoire  de  Marie  et 
de  Jesus,  cp.  P.  Meyer,  Romania,  XVI,  232ff.  (1887). 

According  to  MS.  749  (fol.  132)  of  the  Bibl.  Nat.,  Robert  de  Boron 
in  his  Merlin,  refers  to  a  Brut  translated  from  the  Latin  by  a  certain 
Martin  of  Rochester,  who  is  otherwise  unknown.  The  passage,  which 
is  quoted  from  this  MS.  by  P.  Paris,  RTR,  II,  36,  note,  is  not  found 
in  most  MSS.  and  may  be  merely  a  scribal  invention.  Besides,  in  the 
MSS.  where  it  does  occur,  we  do  not  always  find  rouecestre  (Rochester). 
Rouain  and  other  names  occur,  instead.  Cp.  W.  E.  Mead's  Merlin 
treatise,  E.  E.  T.  S.,  Original  Series,  no.  112,  (1899),  pp.  CLI,  CLIX, 
CLXI,  CLXXI.  Some  scholars  have  accepted  this  Martin  as  Robert's 
chronicle-source,  instead  of  Wace,  e.  g.  Wechssler,  Sage  vom  Heiligen 
Gral,  p.  124  (1898),  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lit,  XXIX1,  60, 


30  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

forms  of  certain  names  in  the  French  poet's  Brut  were  known  only 
through  our  sole  printed  edition  of  that  work,  which  is  based  on 
an  indifferent  MS.,  it  was  possible  to  maintain  that  the  greater 
similarity  of  these  same  names  in  Layamon  to  the  corresponding 
Welsh  names  revealed  a  direct  contact  with  Welsh  Arthurian  tra- 
ditions on  the  part  of  the  latter.  But  investigation  has  proved 
that  the  better  MSS.  of  Wace's  Brut,  which  its  editor  left  unused, 
show  no  such  divergence  between  the  two  poets  in  respect  to  the  forms 
of  these  names,  and  the  argument  from  such  alleged  differences 
has  consequently  collapsed.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  whole  nomen- 
clature of  Layamon's  poem  bears  throughout  the  stamp  of  French 
origin  and  he  was  so  ignorant  of  Welsh  that  he  did  not  recognize 
what  are  often  originally  Welsh  names  in  the  French  forms  with 
which  they  were  clothed  in  the  manuscript  that  lay  before  him.60 

Now  the  conclusion  to  which  the  unmistakably  French  cha- 
racter of  the  nomenclature  points  is  borne  out  by  other  evidence. 
Above  all,  the  circumstance  that  certain  features  which  the  Eng- 
lish poem  has  in  common  with  the  Old  French  prose  romance,  the 
Mort  Artu,  are  entirely  absent  from  the  Wace  of  our  MSS.,  puts 
beyond  dispute  the  fact  that  these  two  works,  which  were  nearly 
contemporary61  and  quite  independent  of  each  other,  had  a  common 
source,  not  identical  with  Wace's  Brut  in  its  original  form.62  The 
features  here  in  question  are:  1.  Arthur  learns  from  a  messenger 
of  Mordred's  treason  in  usurping  the  throne,  whilst  the  former  is 
engaged  in  a  war  against  Lancelot  on  the  continent,  and  sees  in 


including  note  8  (1905),  XXX1,  182ff.  (1906),  XLIV2,  13ff.  (1916), 
and  elsewhere.  If  Martin's  chronicle  really  existed,  it  may  very  well 
have  been  the  expanded  Wace. 

Sommer,  Introduction  to  his  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian 
Romances,  pp.  XX ff.,  cites  a  number  of  passages  in  the  prose  Lancelot 
(to  be  found  III,  3,  46,  V,  130,  117,  144,  respectively,  in  his  series) 
as  allusions  to  a  lost  Brut,  which  Brugger,  op.  cit.  XLIV3,  14,  identifies 
with  Martin's.  None  of  these  supposed  allusions,  however,  are  con- 
vincing.   They  are  much  more  likely  to  be  mere  inventions  for  the  nonce. 

60  Cp.  Bruce,  op.  cit.,  pp.  67 ff. 

61  For  the  date  of  the  Mort  Artu,  cp.  Part  III. 
42  Bruce,  RR,  IV,  451  ff.  (1913). 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  31 

this  intelligence  the  realization  of  a  prophetic  dream.63  2.  At  the 
end  of  the  final  battle  between  Arthur  and  Mordred  only  the  for- 
mer and  two  of  his  knights  are  said  to  be  left  alive.64  3.  Arthur  is 
translated  to  Avalon  by  Morgan  and  her  fairy  ladies.65.  4.  One 
of  Mordred's  sons  who  seized  the  kingdom  after  Arthur's  death- 
is  given  a  definite  name.66 

Many  other  names  and  details  which  distinguish  Layamon 
from  Wace  are  found  scattered  through  different  French  works 
or  works  of  French  origin.67  From  these  various  circumstances 
the  conclusion,  then,  is  unescapable  that  the  version  of  Wace  which 
constitutes  the  basis  of  the  English  poem  had  received  here  and 
there  additions  of  considerable  significance.  Some  of  these  additions, 
perhaps,  should  be  accredited  ultimately  to  Celtic  —  most  likely 
Armorican  —  sources,  but,  in  any  event,  Layamon  was  not  re- 
sponsible for  them. 

The  matters  which  have  just  been  cited  prove  beyond  reaso- 
nable doubt  that  Layamon  in  many  instances  drew  from  an  ex- 
panded Wace.  In  the  light  of  these  instances,  it  is  a  pretty  safe 
inference  that  all  other  additions  to  the  story  of  the  English  poem 
of  any  considerable  extent  come  from  this  same  source.  There 
are,  for  example,  long  passages  in  the  former  where,  over  against 
the  concise  and  matter-of-fact  account  of  Wace,  we  have  a  full 
and  circumstantial   narrative  with  free   introduction   of  speeches 

63  Bruce's  edition  of  MA  (the  Mori  Artu),  p.  202  and  Madden's 
edition  of  Layamon,  III,  117ff.  There  are  some  differences  between 
the  two,  for  a  discussion  of  which  cp.  Bruce,  RR,  IV,  451  f. 

64  MA,  p.  244,  and  Layamon,  III,   143. 

65  MA,  pp.  250  ff.,  and  Layamon,  HI,   144. 

66  MA,  p.  254,  and  Layamon,  UI,   150. 

67  Cp.  Imelmann,  pp.  24ff.  The  chief  works  which  he  cites  are, 
1.  The  prose  Brut  d'Angleterre  (unpublished),  apparently  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  According  to  Imelmann,  it  is  the  prose  rendering  of  a  lost 
Norman  verse-chronicle,  closely  connected  with  Wace.  2.  The  Middle 
English  alliterative  Morte  Arthure.  3.  An  imprinted  French  verse- 
chronicle  preserved  in  the  British  Museum  MS.,  Royal  13,  A.  XXI. 
This  MS.  is  of  the  early  fourteenth  century.  4.  The  Munich  Brut, 
which  may  well  be  a  fragment  of  Gaimar's  lost  chronicle  of  the  Britons. 
It  was  from  such  works,  no  doubt,  that  Layamon  really  derived  the 
details  noted  by  Fletcher  in  his  article  "Did  Layamon  make  any  use 
of  Geoffrey's  Historia?",  PMLA,  XVIII,  91  ff.  (1903). 


32  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  dialogues  —  in  fine,  a  leisurely  breadth  of  narrative  art  that 
approaches  that  of  the  French  Arthurian  romances.  To  say  that 
an  English  writer  of  about  the  year  1200  was  capable  of  this 
genial  amplification  is  contrary  to  all  the  evidence.  Not  only 
is  there  no  other  example  in  this  early  time  of  such  amplification 
of  his  originals  on  the  part  of  any  English  author,  but  one  may 
extend  the  assertion  to  the  entire  Middle  English  period.  There 
is  nothing  like  this,  for  instance,  in  the  relations  of  the  whole  body 
of  the  Middle  English  romances  to  their  French  sources,  for  here 
compression,  not  expansion,  is  the  rule. 

The  amplified  passages  in  question  occur  in  all  parts  of  the 
English  poem,68  but  those  pertaining  to  Arthur  possess  naturally 
the  greatest  interest.  Thus  it  is  the  English  poem  which  first 
tells  us69  of  how  the  elves  (fairies)  conferred  on  the  king  their 
best  gifts  at  his  birth:  "They  enchanted  the  child  with  magic  most 
strong;  they  gave  him  might  to  be  the  best  of  all  knights;  they 
gave  him  another  thing,  that  he  should  be  a  rich  king;  they  gave 
him  the  third  that  he  should  live  long;  they  gave  to  him  —  that 
royal  child  —  virtues  very  good,  so  that  he  was  the  most  generous 
of  all  men  alive."  Still  further,  we  have  here  among  other  novel- 
ties, detailed  descriptions  of  Arthur's  armor,70  an  account  which 
we  shall  return  to  later  on,  in  another  connection,  of  how  the  Round 
Table  was  founded,71  and  an  allegorical  dream  in  which  the  mon- 
arch is  warned  of  his  impending  destruction  through  Mordred. 
In  this  dream  Arthur  finds  himself  on  top  of  a  great  hall  from 
which  he  looks  out  over  his  dominions.  Mordred  comes  and  hews 
down  the  posts  that  hold  up  the  hall  and  Guinevere  aids  the 
traitor  in  pulling  down  the  building,  so  that  Arthur  and  Gawain 


68  For  a  list  of  them  cp.  Sir  F.  Madden's  Preface,  pp.  XlVff. 

69  Madden,  II,  384  f.  Layamon  here  shows  a  serious  discrepancy 
as  compared  with  Wace  which  seems  to  prove  that  the  MS.  of  the 
expanded  version  of  that  author  which  he  was  using  was  defective  in 
this  place;  for  when  Arthur  is  next  mentioned  (after  Uther's  death), 
he  is  —  in  some  unexplained  manner  —  in  Britanny.  See  on  the 
passage,  Bruce,  MLN,  XXVI,  69 f.,  note.  Other  examples  of  discre- 
pancies like  this  in  Arthurian  literature,  due  to  defective  MSS.,  are 
there  given. 

70  Ibid.,  463,  576.  71  Ibid.,  531  ff. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  33 

had  their  arms  broken  in  its  fall.  He  rises,  however,  and  slays 
Mordred  and  Guinevere.  His  followers  had  all  fled  and  he  wan- 
ders alone  until  a  lion  takes  him  into  the  sea,  where  he  is  rescued 
by  a  fish  —  but  at  this  point  he  awakes. 

Most  justly  celebrated  of  all  the  amplified  passages,  however, 
is  the  one  which  gives  us  the  first  vernacular  description  of  Ar- 
thur's translation  to  Avalon  (the  Celtic  Elysium).72  Wace  merely 
remarks  (11.  13683ff.)  of  this  translation  that  Arthur  caused 
himself  to  be  carried  to  Avalon  to  have  his  wounds  cured.  He  is 
still  there  and  the  Britons  expect  his  return,  as  they  say,  —  with 
a  few  more  words  in  the  same  vein.  Instead  of  these  bald  state- 
ments, however,  we  have  in  the  English  poem  the  following  highly 
poetical  lines,  which  open  with  Arthur's  speech  to  his  successor, 
Constantine,  after  he  (Arthur)  has  been  grievously  wounded  in 
his  final  battle  with  Mordred:  "I  give  thee  here  my  kingdom, 
and  defend  thou  my  Britons  ever  in  thy  life,  and  maintain  them 
all  the  laws  that  have  stood  in  my  days,  and  all  the  good  laws 
that  in  Uther's  days  stood.  And  I  will  fare  to  Avalun,  to  the 
fairest  of  all  maidens,  to  Argante  the  queeL,73  an  elf  most  fair, 
and  she  shall  make  my  wounds  all  sound,  make  me  all  whole  with 
healing  draughts.  And  afterwards  I  will  come  again  to  my  king- 
dom and  dwell  among  the  Britons  with  great  joy.'  Even  with  these 
words  there  approached  from  the  sea  a  little  boat,  floating  with 
the  waves;  and  two  women  therein  wondrously  formed;   and  they 

HI,  144  f.  The  one  in  Geoffrey's  Latin  poem,  Vita  Merlini, 
discussed  below,  is  about  50  years  earlier  than  Layamon. 

73  Miss  Paton,  Fairy  Mythology,  pp.  26 1.  has  tried  to  show 
that  Argante  was  a  Celtic  divinity,  but  we  have  here  indisputably 
merely  a  corruption  of  Morgan  (Morgant),  name  of  the  famous  fairy 
queen  of  Arthurian  romance  —  Arthur's  sister  —  whom  Malory  calls 
Morgan  le  Fay.  Cp.  on  the  subject,  Bruce,  MLN,  XXVI,  65  ff.  and 
ER,  III,  190 f.  In  these  places  examples  are  given  of  corruptions  of 
the  character's  name  that  involve  the  loss  of  initial  M  and  change  of 
o  to  a  —  especially,  in  Roman  de  Troie,  1.  8024  (most  MSS.),  and 
in  the  Spanish  romances,  where  the  name  becomes   Urganda. 

This  passage  may  have  been  suggested  to  the  author  of  the 
expanded  Wace  by  Geoffrey's  poem  Vita  Merlini  —  for  there,  too, 
Morgan  (Morgen)  figures  as  the  healer  of  Arthur's  wounds  —  but,  in 
my  opinion,  it  was  more  probably  drawn  directly  from  Celtic  tradition. 


34  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

took  Arthur  anon  and  bare  him  quickly  to  the  boat  and  laid  him 
softly  down  and  forth  they  gan  depart.  Then  was  it  accomplished 
that  Merlin  formerly  said  that  there  should  be  great  care  on  ac- 
count of  Arthur's  departure.  The  Britons  believe  yet  that  he  is 
alive  and  dwelleth  in  Avalun  with  the  fairest  of  all  elves;  and  the 
Britons  yet  expect  when  Arthur  shall  return."74 

Although  translating  a  French  poem  which  constitutes  a  sort 
of  spacious  antechamber  to  the  vast  new  palace  of  Arthurian  ro- 
mance, Layamon  is  himself  thoroughly  under  the  dominion  of 
the  old  Germanic  epic  tradition.  He  inherits  its  metrical  form 
—  although  admitting  into  his  verse  many  laxities  —  its  stock 
of  epic  formulae,  and,  above  all,  its  ethical  emphasis  and  its  spirit 
of  staunch  courage  and  devotion.  His  patriotism  is  so  sturdy  that 
Arthur,  the  scourge  of  the  English  according  to  Celtic  tradition, 
becomes  in  his  work,  himself,  an  Englishman.  Despite  his  dif- 
fuseness,  which,  by  its  insistent  elaboration  of  detail,  made  a  poem, 
already  long,  intolerably  longer,  Layamon  had  a  larger  share  of 


74  This  account  of  Arthur's  end  accords,  in  general,  with 
Geoffrey's  Historia  and  Wace  —  also,  with  the  former's  Vita  Merlini. 
There  were  other  legends,  however,  about  his  death:  1.  He  is  still, 
asleep  with  his  warriors  in  a  cave,  whence  he  will  issue  some  day  to 
restore  the  glory  of  his  people.  The  earliest  recorded  forms  of  this 
legend  represent  him  as  in  Mount  Aetna.  Cp.  Gervase  of  Tilbury  in 
his  Otia  Imperialia  (composed  about  1211),  Secunda  Decisio,  cap.  12 
(ed.  F.  Liebrecht,  Hannover,  1856)  and  Caesarius  of  Heisterbach, 
Dialogus  Miraculorumy  Distinctio  XH,  cap.  12,  ed.  Joseph  Strange 
(Cologne,  1851).  Crusaders  were,  doubtless,  responsible  for  this  loca- 
lization. There  are  similar  legends  connected  with  hills  in  England, 
Scotland  and  Wales.  2.  He  is  the  Wild  Huntsman  of  the  storm-myth. 
Cp.  Index,  below.  3.  He  was  turned  into  a  bird:  (a)  a  chough.  Cp.  M.  A. 
Courtney's  Cornish  Feasts  and  Folk-Lore,  p.  58  (Penzance,  1890) 
and  Notes  and  Queries  (7th  series),  IV,  247.  (b)  a  raven.  This 
superstition  is  first  mentioned  by  Cervantes,  Don  Quixote,  Part  I, 
ch.  13.  See,  too,  for  Cornwall,  Notes  and  Queries  (First  Series)  VH, 
618,  and  for  Brittany,  Felix  Bellamy's  Foret  de  BrechSliant,  I,  129 
(Rennes,  1896).  4.  He  was  killed  by  the  Cath  Paluc,  a  catlike 
monster.  Cp.  p.  41,  note  9,  below.  Nos.  1,  2,  3  are  mere  adaptations  to 
Arthur  of  widespread  motifs.  On  everything  relating  to  Arthur's  end 
cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  298 ff.  (Halle,  1910).  There,  inter  alia, 
fuller  details  concerning  the  legends  just  enumerated  are  given. 


Early  Traditions  Concerning  Arthur  35 

the  genuine  poetic  spirit  than  any  other  Englishman  during  the 
two  centuries  and  a  half  that  followed  the  Norman  Conquest.  He 
was  connected,  however,  with  a  perishing  tradition,  and  it  was 
this  circumstance  rather  than  the  defects  of  his  work  that  caused 
him  to  pass  away  without  leaving  a  trace  of  influence  on  English 
poetry.  The  author  of  his  French  original  may  seem,  at  first 
sight,  to  have  been  even  more  unfortunate,  since  not  a  single  copy 
of  his  work  has  survived.75  He  bequeathed,  however,  to  a  man  of 
greater  genius  than  his  own  —  the  author  of  the  Vulgate  Mort 
Artu  —  the  materials  for  one  scene,  at  least,  through  which  he 
has  merited  a  reflected  immortality  —  namely,  the  scene  of  Ar- 
thur's translation  to  Avalon  near  the  end  of  that  romance. 

There  is  no  profit  in  following  the  stream  of  the  Geoff reyan 
tradition  concerning  Arthur  —  his  achievements  and  his  tragic 
end  —  further  down  than  Layamon.  As  late  as  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury and  occasionally  even  beyond  the  pseudo-historical  fables 
which  had  their  fountain-head  in  Geoffrey  found  a  place  in  all 
histories  of  Great  Britain.  It  was  through  such  channels  that 
tho  story  of  King  Lear,  for  example,  reached  Holinshed,  and 
then  Shakespeare.  The  later  chroniclers,  however,  it  is  evident, 
contented  themselves  with  copying  and  combining  the  accounts 
of  their  predecessors.  If  they  made  any  additions  to  their  sources, 
it  was  not  from  oral  tradition  that  they  did  so,  but  from  their  own 


Of  Layamon's  poem  only  two  copies  have  survived,  one 
dating  from  the  first  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  other  from  the 
latter  part,  or,  perhaps,  even  from  the  first  part  of  the  fourteenth. 
Both  are  in  the  Cottonian  collection  of  the  British  Museum.  The 
second,  which  is  much  mutilated  by  fire  is  inferior  to  the  first  and 
represents  a  new  recension  of  Layamon's  work.  Cp.  Rudolf  Seyger, 
Beitrage  zu  Layamon's  Brut  (Halle  diss.,  1912).  —  Layamon's  im- 
mediate original,  after  all,  was  substantially  identical  with  Wace.  The 
ratio  of  the  added  lines  to  those  in  the  original  Wace  could  not  have 
been  large.  Nevertheless,  one  has  to  make  allowance  for  the  fact  that 
all  apparent  expansions  in  Layamon  of  any  extent  were  already  in 
his  French  original.  This  is  neglected  by  Miss  Frances  Lytle  Gillespy 
in  her  „ Layamon's  Brut:  A.  Comparative  Study  in  Narrative  Art",  Univer- 
sity of  California  Publications  in  Modern  Philology,  III,  361  ff.  (1916). 


36  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

fancies,  mainly  in  the  way  of  interpreting  what  seemed  to  them 
difficulties  of  their  originals.76^ 


78  In  his  Arthurian  Material  in  the  Chronicles,  to  which  I 
have  already  often  referred,  R.  H.  Fletcher  has  sifted  this  enormous 
mass  of  writings  —  in  Latin,  French  and  English,  in  verse  and  in 
prose  —  with  an  industry  and  judgment  that  leaves  nothing  to  be 
desired.  If  the  result  for  the  period  subsequent  to  Layamon  is  almost 
wholly  negative,  he  has  none  the  less  earned  the  gratitude  of  all 
students  of  these  subjects. 


Chapter  II. 
Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances. 

The  first  French  chronicles  in  verse,  based  on  Geoffrey,  which 
developed  the  Arthurian  theme  were  somewhat  earlier  in  date  than 
any  of  the  Arthurian  romances  that  have  come  down  to  us,  the 
earliest  of  the  extant  romances  being  the  Erec  of  Chretien  de 
Troyes,  which  was  composed,  as  was  stated  above,  about  1168. 
The  influence  of  the  chronicles  on  the  new  genre  is  important,  but 
it  was  not  in  supplying  the  latter  with  specific  narrative  motifs  for 
development,  but  rather  in  giving  eclat  to  Arthur  and  his  court 
and  turning  the  attention  of  the  literary  world  of  the  time  in  the 
direction  of  the  stories  already  connected  with  his  name,1  and  in 


1  For  the  specific  influence  of  Wace  on  Chretien,  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  romancers  and  the  one  whose  works  are  the  earliest 
that  have  survived,  cp.  Annette  B.  Hopkins,  The  Influence  of  Wace 
on  the  Arthurian  Romances  of  Crestien  de  Troies  (Chicago  diss., 
1913).  Even  the  rather  modest  claims  which  Miss  Hopkins  makes  on 
behalf  of  Wace  are  somewhat  exaggerated.  Brugger,  moreover,  in 
his  review  of  her  study,  Zs.  /.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  XLIV2,  13ff.  (1916), 
criticizes  her  for  attributing  to  Wace  influences  that  may  have  been 
really  due  to  the  versions  of  Gaimar  or  Martin  (of  Rochester),  to  the 
Munich  Brut  or  the  version  in  laisses  monorimes.  The  versions  just 
named,  as  stated  above,  have  all  perished,  except  for  fragments  that 
are  not  pertinent  to  our  inquiry,  so  that  one  cannot  control  the  matter 
with  certainty.  Nevertheless,  we  know  that  Wace  —  thongh  only 
named  once  in  subsequent  mediaeval  literature,  viz.  in  the  prologue 
to  Guiron  le  Courtois  —  was  much  read  and  we  have  seen  that 
his  Bruty  in  an  expanded  form,  was  used  in  two  of  the  most  impor- 
tant of  Arthurian  texts,  whilst  there  is  no  indication  at  all  that  the 
other  paraphrases  of  Geoffrey  ever  exercised  the  slightest  influence. 
I  cannot,  therefore,  regard  Brugger's  point  as  possessing  any  real 
importance. 


88  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

stimulating  the  poets  to  still  other  inventions  of  the  same  nature. 
That  is  to  say,  their  influence  was  the  same  as  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth's —  only  more  powerful,  for,  as  has  been  already  remarked, 
poems  in  the  vernacular  commanded  a  more  extensive  audience 
than  pseudo-histories  in  Latin. 

Since  the  metrical  romances  have  only  this  general  relation 
to  the  chronicles,  we  have  to  look  elsewhere  for  their  origin,  and 
here  we  are  brought  back  again  to  the  question  of  those  traditions 
of  the  Celtic  races  which  gave  the  starting-point  for  the  narratives 
of  Geoffrey  and  his  followers.  This  problem  of  the  relations  of 
the  Arthurian  romances  to  Celtic  tradition  has  been  hotly  debated 
and  some  extremists  have  gone  so  far  as  to  deny  that  the  French 
writers  owed  practically  anything  to  this  tradition.2 


2  This  is,  virtually,  the  position  of  Adolf  Holzmann  in  his  very 
able  article,  Artus,  Pfeiffer's  Germania,  XII,  257  ff.  (1867).  In  most 
of  his  contentions  with  respect  to  fundamental  questions  of  Arthurian 
discussion  he  agrees  with  the  Anti-Celticists  of  later  decades.  Thus, 
pp.  262  ff.,  he  regards  the  three  Welsh  tales,  Geraint,  Owen  and 
Peredur  as  derived  from  the  French;  pp.  276  ff.  he  argues  that  the 
Arthurian  passages  in  William  of  Malmesbury's  De  Antiquitate  Glas- 
toniensis  Ecclesiae  are  late  interpolations,  and  that  the  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  passage  concerning  Gawain's  tomb  in  that  writer's  Gesta 
Anglorum,  III,  287,  else,  the  author  would  have  told  of  Arthur  in 
his  First  Book;  p.  282  he  declares  that  the  Brut  Tysilio  is  based 
on  Geoffrey,  etc.,  etc.  Foerster  and  Golther  do  not  go  to  such  ex- 
tremes as  Holtzmann,  but  the  whole  tendency  of  their  work,  as  we 
shall  see,  throughout  the  present  treatise,  is,  likewise,  to  minimize 
Celtic  influences  in  the  Arthurian  romances.  Perhaps,  the  best  general 
statement  of  Golther's  position  in  the  matter  is  to  be  found  in  two 
articles  which  he  contributed  to  the  Zs.  fur  vergleichende  Literatur- 
geschichte,  Neue  Folge,  III  (1890),  viz.,  pp.  211  ff.,  „Zur  Frage  nach 
der  Entstehung  der  bretonischen  oder  Artus-Epenu,  and  pp.  409  ff., 
„Beziehungen  zwischen  franz5sischer  und  keltischer  Literatur  im  Mittel- 
alteru.  Golther  distinguishes  (pp.  212  ff.)  three  different  successive 
forms  in  which  the  matiere  de  Bretagne  was  embodied.  1.  Sagen- 
bestandteile,  i.  e.  the  episodes  which  constitute  the  materials  of  the 
Breton  epics  and  which,  also,  occur  independently  of  these,  e.  g.  the 
chastity  ordeal  of  Iseult  in  the  Tristan  poems.  2.  Sagendichtung, 
i.  e.  oral  tales  which  might  combine  and  elaborate  earlier  independent 
incidents.  3.  Die  vorhandenen  altfranzosischen  Epen  alter  Art,  i.  e. 
the  Old  French  romances.    The  Celts,  he  thinks,  (p.  213)  are  impor- 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  39 

The  principal  circumstance  which  renders  a  satisfactory  judg- 
ment in  the  matter  so  difficult  is  that  we  have  so  little  preser- 
ved of  the  early  literature  of  the  two  Celtic  peoples  who  are  most 
directly  concerned  in  the  debate  —  namely,  the  Welsh  and  the 
Bretons.  Indeed,  nothing  but  names  and  glosses  in  the  Breton 
language  have  survived  from  the  Middle  Ages.3  The  folk-songs 
which  Th.  H.  de  la  Villemarque  published  in  1839  under  the  title 
of  Barzaz-Breiz  and  which  related  in  some  instances  to  the  prin- 
cipal characters  of  the  Arthurian  legend  —  for  example,  the  king 
himself  and  Merlin  —  being  so  late,  would  not  have  had  very 
much  value  for  our  purpose,  even  if  they  had  been  genuine.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  these  have  been  proved  to  be  substantially 
forgeries  and  not  songs  taken  down  from  oral  recitation,  as  they 
pretended  to  be.4  Indeed,  they  are,  in  a  large  measure,  free  in- 
ventions of  their  nineteenth  century  author  —  sometimes  owing 
a  mere  suggestion  to  genuine  folk-songs,  but  more  frequently  based 
on  books.  It  is  a  case  of  the  Macpherson  forgeries  over  again  — 
the  fraud  of  a  perf ervid  patriot  —  only  the  connection  with  ac- 
tual tradition  in  this  instance  is  even  slighter  than  could  be  claim- 
ed for  the  Ossian  and  Fingal  pieces. 

The  conditions  are  somewhat  better  with  Welsh  literature, 
for  here  we  have  in  verse  the  poems  of  the  Four  Ancient  Books 


tant  only  for  no.  1,  and  with  regard  even  to  no.  1,  not  all  of  the 
materials  under  this  heading,  by  any  means,  are  of  Celtic  origin.  No.  2 
is  French  (developed  by  itinerant  and  often  bilingual  conteurs),  and 
we  find  combined  here  not  only  Celtic  materials,  but  others  drawn  from 
the  general  fund  of  mediaeval  stories.  The  Celtic  names  in  the  French 
romances  of  the  Arthurian  cycle  are  due,  in  a  large  measure,  to 
fashion  and  caprice  (p.  215),  after  the  conquest  of  England  had  made 
the  matter  popular,  and  they  no  more  imply  necessarily  Celtic  origin 
for  the  stories  in  which  they  appear  than  Germanic  names  in  the 
chansons  de  geste  imply  Germanic  origin  for  the  stories  of  those  poems. 
Golther  ascribes  to  the  combinations  and  inventions  of  the  authors  a 
large  share  in  no.  3. 

3  Cp.  H.  Zimmer,  Die  romanischen  Literaturen  und  Sprachen, 
mit  Einschlufi  des  Keltischen,  p.  133  (1909)  in  Paul  Henneberg's 
series,  Kultur  der  Gegenwart. 

4  Cp.,  especially,  F.  M.  Luzel:  De  V authenticite  des  chants  du 
Barzaz-Breiz  de  M.  de  la  Villemamup  fParis,  1872). 


40  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  Wales  — 5  The  Black  Book  of  Caermarthen,  The  Book  of  Aneu- 
rin,  The  Book  of  Taliessin,  The  Red  Book  of  Hergest.  These 
poems,  although  they  purport  to  be  the  work  of  Welsh  bards  of 
the  sixth  century,  are  dated  by  modern  scholars  in  a  much  later 
time  —  from  the  tenth  to  the  twelfth  centuries.6  They  relate  in 
part  to  battles  which  fall  in  the  period  to  which  Arthur  belonged 
—  that  is  to  say,  the  sixth  century  —  and  a  few  of  them  mention 
Arthur7  and  certain  characters  connected  with  him  who  play  a 


6  Edited,    with   translation  by  W.  F.  Skene,   under  this  title,  in 
2  vols.     (Edinburgh,   1868.) 

6  Zimmer,  op.  cit.,  p.  116. 

7  English  translations  of  the  poems  relating  to  Arthur  in  the 
four  ancient  books  of  Wales  are  given  by  Skene,  I,  259 — 268.  There 
are  only  four  of  such  poems  and  of  these  four  the  first,  entitled  The 
Chair  of  the  Sovereign  (Book  of  Taliessin,  XV),  seems  to  mention 
Arthur  only  incidentally.  The  poem,  it  is  true,  is  obscure  to  the 
last  degree.  In  the  second  (Black  Book  of  Caermarthen,  XXXI) 
Arthur  and  Cai  (Kay)  are  seeking  entrance  to  a  castle,  but  the  porter. 
Glewlwyd  Gavaelvawr  (represented  in  the  Welsh  prose  tales  as  one 
of  Arthur's  own  porters),  refuses  until  he  knows  more  about  the  per- 
sons who  wish  to  be  admitted.  Arthur  eulogizes,  then,  his  followers  — 
particularly,  Cai,  to  a  description  of  whose  exploits  most  of  the  poem 
is  devoted.  Thus,  although  Arthur  is  the  speaker,  the  piece  is  really 
a  glorification  of  Cai.  In  the  fourth  poem,  Geraint,  son  of  Erbin 
(Black  Book  of  Caermarthen,  XXII),  Arthur  is  barely  mentioned 
(Skene,  I,  267)  as  "emperor,  and  conductor  of  the  toil"  in  the  battle 
of  Llongborth  (wherever  that  may  be),  in  which  Geraint,  the  hero  of 
the  poem,  was  slain.  Only  the  third  poem,  Preiddeu  Annwvn  (^=  The 
Harryings  of  Hades),  Book  of  Taliessin,  XXX  (Skene,  I,  264  ff.) 
celebrates  Arthur  as  the  central  character.  I  have  quoted  an  extract 
from  this  poem  in  the  text  above.  The  piece,  as  will  be  seen,  refers 
uj  an  obscure  manner  to  expeditions  which  ArthuY  and  his  men  — 
in  his  ship,  Prydwen  —  made  against  certain  places,  named  in  the 
poem,  but  not  yet  identified.  Sir  John  Rhys,  pp.  XXIV  f.  of  his  pre- 
face to  the  edition  (London,  1906)  of  Malory's  Morte  Darthur  in 
Everyman's  Library,  says:  "The  poem  evidently  deals  with  expeditions 
conducted  by  Arthur  by  sea  to  the  realms  of  twilight  and  darkness". 
He  also  compares  the  quest  of  the  cauldron  of  the  Head  of  Hades  in 
the  Welsh  poem  to  a  similar  quest  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen,  only 
the  cauldron  in  the  latter  is  in  Ireland,  not  Hades.  The  preface,  just 
mentioned,  contains  the  best  discussion  of  Arthurian  allusions  in  these 
Welsh  poems    that  we   have.     Rhys,  however,    omits    to    comment  on 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  41 

large  part  in  the  French  Arthurian   romances  —   for  instance, 
Gwalchmei8     (Gawain)    and    Kay     (Kei),9    Arthur's    seneschal 


the  passages  (Skene  I,  263,  295)  about  Llachan,  son  of  Arthur.  This 
son  reappears  in  several  of  the  French  romances  under  the  name  of 
"Lohot".    Cp.  my  discussion  of  the  character  in  RR.  Ill,  179ff.  (1912). 

*)  For  Gwalchmei  (Gawain  of  the  French  romances)  in  Welsh 
literature  cp.  Loth's  Mabinogion2,  I,  288,  note  1.  Ibid,  in  Kulhwch 
and  Olwen  he  is  called  son  of  Gwyar,  and  it  is  said  of  him:  "He 
never  returned  from  a  mission  without  having  achieved  it;  he  was  the 
best  of  footmen  and  the  best  of  horsemen.  He  was  Arthur's  nephew, 
son  of  his  sister  and  cousin".  In  a  triad,  Loth,  II 2,  89,  he  is  one 
of  the  "three  goldentongued  knights  at  Arthur's  court";  but  this  last 
may  have  been  written  under  French  influence.  Loth  observes,  I2, 
288,  note  1,  that  gwalch  means  "male  falcon"  and  gwyar,  "blood". 
He  does  not  explain  mei.  According  to  Rhys,  Arthurian  Legend, 
p.   13,  Gwalchmei  probably  means  "hawk  or  falcon  of  May". 

As  has  just  been  stated,  Gwalchmeis  father  in  Kulhwch  and 
Olwen  is  named  Gwyar;  in  Geoffrey  (Book  VIII,  ch.  21,  et.  seq.)  and 
the  French  romances  Gawain's  father  is  named  Lot  (Loth).  In  his 
article,  "Le  roi  Loth  des  romans  de  la  Table  Ronde",  Revue  Cel- 
tique,  XVI,  67  (1895),  J.  Loth  is  inclined  to  identify  this  Loth  with 
the  Lloch  Llawwynnyawc  who  figures  among  Arthur's  warriors  in 
Kulhwch  and  Olwen  (Loth's  Mabinogion2,  I,  264)  and  in  the  Black 
Book  of  Caermarthen  (Skene,  I,  262).  It  is  to  be  observed,  however, 
that  further  on  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  (op.  cit.  p.  276)  this  Lloch 
(or  Llwch,  as  the  name  is  there  spelt)  is  represented  as  the  great - 
uncle  of  Arthur  (on  his  mother's  side),  not  his  brother-in-law.  Since 
Geoffrey's  Lot  (Loth),  Book  VIII,  ch.  21,  et.  seq.  is  from  Lothian 
(Londonesia),  may  not  Geoffrey  have  fabricated  this  name  from  the 
name  of  the  country  with  which  he  connects  him,  just  as  he  fabri- 
cated (XII,  19)  the  name  of  his  fictitious  prince  of  Wales,  Gualo,  from 
Guallia  (Wales)  or  Sabrina,  (II,  5),  name  of  the  goldess  of  the  river 
Severn,  from  Sabren?  Loth,  in  the  above-mentioned  article,  does  not 
credit  Geoffrey's  invention,  I  believe,  with  its  proper  share  in  what 
that  writer  says  in  regard  to  Loth. 

9)  In  these  poems,  as  in  Welsh  literature,  generally  —  excepting 
the  pieces  that  betray  French  influence  (cp.  Loth's  Mabinogion2),  I, 
256,  note  1)  —  Cai  (Kay)  plays  a  heroic  role  —  not  that  of  a  butt, 
as  in  the  French  romances.  For  instance,  in  the  Black  Book  of 
Caermarthen,  XXXI  (Skene,  I,  264)  he  slays  the  monster,  Cath  Palug 
or  Cath  Paluc  (Capalu  or  Chapalu  of  the  Old  French),  which,  accor- 
ding to  one  line  of  Arthurian  tradition,  killed  Arthur.  Cp.  on  this 
subject   E.  Freymond's   masterly   monograph,    mentioned    above,    viz., 


42  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

in  the  French  romances.  Indeed,  Urien,  a  prince  of  the  North, 
who  figures  in  the  French  romances  as  the  husband  of  Morgan  le 
Fay  and  the  father  of  Ivain,  is  even  more  frequently  mentioned 
than  Arthur  himself.  The  style  of  these  poems,  however,  as  of  the 
Bardic  poetry  generally,  is  obscure  and  oracular.  They  are,  be- 
sides, lyrical,  not  epical,  so  that  they  could  not  in  themselves  con- 
tribute to  the  transmission  of  legends  concerning  the  heroes  that 
are  mentioned  in  them.  The  following,  for  instance,  is  from  one 
of  the  poems  concerning  Arthur  in  the  Book  of  Taliessin.10    It 


Artus'  Kampf mit  demKatzenungestum:  Sonderabzug  aus:  Beitrdge 
zur  romanischen Philologie,  Festgabefur  Gustav  Grober  (Halle,  1899). 
I  have  summarized  the  main  points  of  this  monograph  in  my  edition 
of  the  Mort  Artu,  pp.  304  f.  The  idea  of  Arthur's  death  through 
this  monstrous  cat  (water  demon,  according  to  Freymond)  may  be  one 
of  the  debts  of  French  romance  to  Wales,  although  it  is  not  found  in 
the  extant  Welsh  texts.  A  similar  tradition  may  have  prevailed  in 
Brittany.  Cp.  Galeran  de  Bretagne,  5068  ff.,  where  it  is  ascribed 
to  the  Bretons.  In  any  event,  early  in  the  thirteenth  centnry  we 
find  it  localized  at  Lake  Bourget  in  Savoy  and  J.  Loth,  Romania, 
XXIX,  125  f.  (1900)  suggests  that  the  story  reached  Savoy  by  way  of 
Champagne  and  Flanders- Alsace,  whose  princes  (patrons  of  Chretien 
de  Troyes)  we  know  were  interested  in  the  materials  of  romance, 
Freymond,  to  be  sure,  thinks  that  travellers  crossing  the  Alps  brought 
the  tale  to  Savoy.  The  earliest  allusions  to  the  killing  of  Arthur  by 
a  monster  cat  occur  in  texts  of  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury —  not  all  of  them  romances.  A  lengthy  account  of  this  fight 
will  be  found  in  the  Merlin  of  the  Vulgate  cycle.  Cp.  Sommer's 
Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian  Romances,  II,  441  ff.  Here,  ho- 
wever, Arthur  is  victor.  The  episode  is  plainly  connected  with  the 
localization  of  the  legend  in  Savoy,  only  in  the  Merlin  the  combat 
is  represented  as  taking  place  on  Lake  Lausanne  (i.  e.  Geneva),  and 
not  on  Lake  Bourget,  where  the  Mont  du  Chat  still  preserves  a  trace 
of  the  early  localization. 

For  some  corrections  to  Freymond's  monograph,  cp.  Loth,  loc.  cit. 
In  "Arthurian  Notes",  MLN,  XVII,  277,  W.  W.  NeweU  identifies  the 
monster  of  no.  30  in  Child's  English  and  Scottish  Ballads  with 
the  Chapalu. 

According  to  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  (Loth,  I2,  275)  Cai  was  slain 
by  Gwyddawc,  son  of  Menestyr,  who,  in  turn,   was  slain  —   and  his 
brothers,  too  —  by  Arthur  in  revenge  for  Cai.     There  is  nothing  to 
correspond  to  this  in  the  French  romances. 
10  Skene,  II,  264. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  43 

celebrates  apparently  some  disastrous  expedition   by   sea  of   tbe 

great  hero: 

"Am  I  not  a  candidate  for  fame  with  the  listened  song 

In  Caer  Pedryvan,  in  the  isle  of  the  strong  door? 

The  twilight  and  pitchy  darkness  were  mixed  together. 

Bright  wine  their  liquor  before  their  retinue. 

Thrice  enough  to  fill  Prydwen  (i.  e.  Britain)  we  went  on  the  sea; 

Except  seven  none  returned  from  Caer  Rigor. 

I  shall  not  deserve  much  from  the  ruler  of  literature. 

Beyond  Caer  Wydyr  they  saw  not  the  prowess  of  Arthur. 

Three   score  Canhwr  (i.  e.  centuries  of   men  or  a   legion)  stood  on 

the  wall; 
Difficult  was  a  conversation  with  its  sentinel. 
Thrice  enough  to  fill  Prydwen  there  went  with  Arthur. 
Except  seven,  none  returned  from  Caer  Golud. 

I  shall  not  deserve  much  from  those  with  long  shields. 

They  know  not  what  day,  who  the  causer, 

What  hour  in  the  serene  day  Cwy  was  born, 

Who  caused  that  he  should  not  go  to  the  dales  of  Devwy. 

They  know  not  the  brindled  ox,  thick  his  head-band. 

Seven  score  knobs  in  his  collar. 

And  when  we  went  with  Arthur  of  anxious  memory, 

Except  seven,  none  returned  from  Caer  Vandwy." 

To  the  uninitiated  such  a  piece  as  this  would  not  convey  much 
information  concerning  the  events  to  which  it  relates,  and  the 
rest  are  no  better.  The  same  is  true  of  the  dialogue  between  Arthur 
and  Guinevere,11  the  only  Welsh  poem  in  which  these  two  cha- 
racters appear  together. 

Besides  the  poems  from  which  extracts  have  been  given  above, 
we  have  the  highly  characteristic  brief  poems  called  Triads.12  The 
nature  of  these  pieces  will  be  sufficiently  manifest  from  the  follo- 
wing specimens,13  which  have  reference  to  incidents  and  personages 
in  Arthurian  saga: 

" Three  furious  blows  in  the  isle  of  Prydein  [i.  e.  Britain]. 

"One  was  given  by  Matholwch  the  Gael  to  Branwen  daughter 

11  Printed,  with  translation,  by  J.  Rhys,  Studies  in  the  Ar- 
thurian Legend,  pp.  57  f.  (Oxford  1891).     He  gives  it  no  date. 

12  The  best  translations  are  in  French  by  J.  Loth,  Les  Ma- 
binogion2,  H,  223  ff.  (Paris,  1913). 

18  Ibid.,  p.  246,  and  p.  247,  respectively. 


44  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  Llyr,  the  second  by  Gwenhwy  vach  [  i.  e.  a  sister  of  Guinevere's  ] 
to  Gwenhwyvar14  fi.  e.  Guinevere],  which  led  to  the  battle  of 
Kamlan  [i.  e.  Arthur's  final  battle  with  Mordred];  the  third  by 
Golyddan,'  the  bard,  to  Kotwaladyr  Vendigeit." 

Or  again: 

"Three  costly  pillaging  expeditions  in  the  isle  of  Prydein 
[i.  e.  Britain].  The  first  took  place  when  Mordred  went  to  Ar- 
thur's court  at  Kelliwic  in  Cornwall:  He  left  neither  food  nor 
drink  in  the  court;  he  consumed  everything;  he  drew  Guinevere 
from  her  royal  chair  and  buffeted  her.  The  second  was  when 
Arthur  went  to  Mordred's  court;  he  left  neither  food  nor  drink 
in  the  court  nor  in  the  district.  The  third  was  when  Aeddan  Vra- 
dawc  (the  traitor)  went  to  Alclut  to  the  court  of  Kydderch  Hael; 
after  him  there  was  left  neither  drink  nor  beast  alive."' 

The  triad-form  seems  to  have  originated  in  Ireland,  but  it 
received  its  especial  development  in  Wales,  and  Loth's  collection 
contains  153  of  these  pieces  —  only  an  insignificant  portion,  no 
doubt,  of  those  that  once  existed.  There  are  others  besides  the 
ones  just  quoted  that  contain  allusions  to  Arthurian  matters  and 
we  shall  have  occasion  later  on  to  return  to  them,  but,  after  all, 
the  information  we  glean  from  them  is  scanty  and  it  is  obvious, 
that  these  little  poems  played  virtually  no  part  in  the  transmission 
of  Arthurian  material  to  the  French  poets.15 

14  Sir  John  Rhys,  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  35  ff., 
cites  one  of  the  Welsh  triads  as  declaring  that  Arthur  had  three 
wives  of  this  name.  But,  according  to  the  translation  of  J.  Loth, 
Mabinogion2,  II,  250,  the  three  Gwenhwyvars  there  named  are  merely 
called  the  "principal  ladies  of  Arthur's  court".  To  be  sure,  the  third 
of  these  Gwenhwyvars  (the  one  whose  father  was  Ocvran  Gawr,  the 
giant)  is  Arthur's  consort.  Rhys's  comparison,  loc.  cit.,  with  the  Irish 
Echaid  Airem  and  the  three  Etains,  therefore,  falls  to  the  ground. 
For  Gwenhwyvar  (Guinevere)  in  Welsh  literature  cp.  Loth,  op.  cit, 
I,  259,  note  3.  She  is  always  called  the  daughter  of  Gogrvan  or  Gogrvan 
Gawr  in  Welsh  ("Ocrvan"  in  the  triad  cited  above  being  merely  a 
variant  of  that  name).  Loth  cites  from  Myvyrian  Archaeology,  p.  863, 
col.  1,  a  Welsh  proverb,  which  says  of  her  that  "she  was  bad  when 
she  was  small,  but  worse,  when  she  grew  up."  The  name  means 
"white  phantom"  or  „ white  fairy". 

One   of   the  most   interesting  evidences  in  regard  to  the  cur- 
rency of  Arthurian  traditions  in  Wales  occurs  in  the  Code  of  Gwent 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  45 

A  much  more  important  branch  of  Welsh  literature  for  our 
present  purpose  are  the  prose  tales  called  the  Mabinogion,  so  well- 
known  to  the  present  generation  through  the  reprints  of  Lady 
Charlotte  Guest's  translation,  which  appeared  originally  in  1838 
and  which  is  now  almost  an  English  classic.16  The  Welsh  word 
mabinogion  in  the  manuscripts  of  the  collection  is  the  plural  of 
mabinogi,  17  which  in  turn  seems  to  be  a  term  applied  to  the  tales 


(South  Wales).  Cp.  Aneurin  Owen's  Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes 
of  Wales,  I,  678,  (London,  1841).  There  it  is  said:  "When  the 
queen  shall  wish  a  song  in  her  chamber,  the  bard  will  sing  the  song 
about  Camlan  [i.  e.  Arthur's  last  battle],  bnt  in  a  low  voice,  for  fear 
lest  it  may  cause  trouble  in  the  hall"  [i.  e.  for  fear  lest  the  song  may 
provoke  quarrels  in  the  hall].  The  earliest  MS.  of  the  code  dates 
from  shortly  before  1200,  but  Howel  Dda,  who  is  supposed  to  have 
compiled  it  in  its  original  form,  ruled  in  South  Wales  in  the  first 
half  of  the  tenth  century. 

18  For  scientific  study,  however,  the  French  translation  by 
J.  Loth,  Les  Mabinogion,  2  vols,  (second  edition,  Paris,  1913)  is  the 
only  one  to  be  recommended. 

17  This  interpretation  of  the  word,  however,  seems  to  have  ori- 
ginated in  a  scribal  error.  The  proper  meaning  of  mabinogion  (plural 
of  mabinog,  and  not  of  mabinogi)  is  really  disciples,  and  this  is  the 
meaning  given  it  in  the  Iolo  MSS.,  p.  211.  So,  according  to  the  most 
careful  discussion  of  the  sense  of  mabinogi  and  mabinogion,  viz., 
J.  Loth's  Contributions  a  V Etude  des  Romans  de  la  Table  Ronde, 
pp.  30ff.  (Paris,  1912)  and  Les  Mabinogion2,  I,  11  ff.  (Paris,  1913). 
Elsewhere  in  the  Red  Book,  the  four  branches,  Pwyll,  Branwen, 
Manaivyddan,  Math,  are  spoken  of  as  forming  one  Mabinogi,  and 
this  is,  no  doubt,  correct. 

J.  Rhys,  The  Text  of  the  Red  Book  Mabinogion,  p.  VIII  (1887), 
interpreted  mabinog  (mebinog)  as  "a  literary  apprentice",  one  who 
aspired  to  be  a  bard,  and  the  still  obscurer  word,  mabinogi,  as  the 
literary  baggage  of  such  a  bardic  apprentice.  So,  too,  H.  Zimmer, 
Gottingische  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  June  10,  1890,  pp.  513  f.  and 
J.  Loth  in  the  passages  cited  above.  These  scholars  reject  speci- 
fically the  old  interpretation  of  the  word  mabinogi,  to  which  Lady 
Charlotte  Guest  gave  currency,  viz.  "a  tale  for  children".  On  the 
other  hand,  in  The  White  Book  Mabinogion,  Welsh  Tales  &  Ro- 
mances reproduced  from  the  Peniarth  Manuscripts,  p.  XXVI  (Pwll- 
*heli,  1907  —  published  really  in  1909,  it  would  seem,  since  the 
preface  is  dated  in  that  year),  J.  G.  Evans  takes  mabinogion  as  the 
plural  of  mabinogi  and  denies  that  mabinog  meant  "literary  apprentice" 


46  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

that  a  mabinog  or  apprentice  in  the  art  of  storytelling  practised 
reciting.  This  term  applies  properly  only  to  four  tales  in  the 
collection  that  goes  under  the  name  of  Mabinogion  — 18  namely, 
"Pwyll,  Prince  of  Dyfed",  "Branwen,  Daughter  of  Llyr",  "Ma- 
nawyddan,  son  of  Llyr"  and  "Math,  son  of  Mathonwy"  —  none 
of  which  contain  Arthurian  material.  Nevertheless,  the  collection 
thus  miscalled  does  contain  some  tales  in  which  Arthur  and  other 
characters  of  his  cycle  appear.  Three  of  these  tales  are,  undoub- 
tedly, derived  from  French  romances  —  either  the  extant  romances 
of  Chretien  (as  the  present  writer  believes)  or  lost  French  ver- 
sions of  the  same  stories.19  The  tales  in  question  are  Owen  or 
The  Lady  of  the  Fountain,  corresponding  to  Chretien's  Yvain 
(Chevalier  au  Lion),  Peredur  ab  Evrawe,  corresponding  to  the  same 
writer's  Perceval  (Conte  del  Graal),  Geraint  or  Geraint  and  Enid, 
corresponding  to  his  Erec  (Erec  et  Enide). 

The  French  origin  of  the  three  Welsh  tales  just  named  is 
indicated  unmistakably  by  their  coherent  structure  and  by  the 
character  of  the  life  which  they  reflect  and  which  in  social  spirit, 


or  "was  a  technical  term  belonging'  to  the  bardic  system".  In  his 
view,  "any  narrative  that  treats  of  early  life  is  a  mabinogi".  He 
cites  in  proof  the  title,  Mabinogi  Jesu  Crist  (as  Rhys,  Arthurian 
Legends,  p.  2,  note  2,  indeed,  had  already  done),  which  is  a  Welsh 
version  of  the  Gospel  of  pseudo -Matthew,  called  Liber  de  ortu  beatae 
Mariae  et  Infantia  Salvatoris.  (This  Welsh  version  was  edited  by 
Miss  Mary  Williams,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  184  ff.,  in  1912).  Evans's 
interpretation  of  mabinogi  is  adopted  by  Miss  Williams  in  her  Peredur 
essay,  p.  IV,  note  3  (1909)  and  by  W.  J.  Gruffydd  in  his  paper,  "The 
Mabinogion",  Transactions  of  the  Honourable  Society  of  Cymm- 
rodorion,  Session  1912 — 1913,  pp.  39 f.  J.  Loth,  Contributions, 
pp.  30  f.,  has  argued  convincingly,  however,  that  the  sense  which  Evans 
ascribes  to  mabinogi  did  not  belong  to  the  word  in  its  earlier  history, 
but  was  a  later  (fourteenth  century)  development.  For  a  review  of 
the  publication  and  discussion  of  the  Mabinogion  down  to  1902,  see 
Alfred  Nutt's  note,  pp.  323  ff.  of  the  edition  of  Lady  Charlotte  Guest's 
translation  of  these  tales  published  by  his  firm  in  that  year. 

58  This  was  pointed  out  by  Zimmer,  Gottingische  Gelehrte  An- 
zeigen  for  June  10,  1890,  pp.  51  Iff.  Even  J.  Loth  had  failed  to 
make  the  distinction  in  the  first  edition  (1887)  of  his  above-cited 
translation. 

19  For  a  full  treatment  of  this  question,  cp.  Part  IV,  below. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  47 

domestic  custom,  the  usages  of  war  —  indeed,  in  every  respect 
—  was  that  of  twelfth  century  France,  as  depicted  by  Chretien 
and  the  other  French  poets.    Here,  moreover,  instead  of  the  pre- 
cise   localization  of  the  genuine  Welsh  stories,   which  makes  it 
possible  even  at  the  present  day  to  follow  with  substantial  exact- 
ness the  movements  of  their  heroes  in  Wales,  everything  is  vague 
and  shadowy.20   On  the  other  hand,  there  are  two  tales  in  the  col- 
lection that  represent  genuine  Welsh  tradition  about  Arthur.   One 
of  these  is  without  suspicion  of  contamination  from  French  lite- 
rature —  namely,  Kulhwch  and  Olwen;  and  the  other,  the  Dream 
of  Rhonabwy,  although  from  allusions  which  it  contains  to  Geof- 
frey's Historia  it  could  not  have  been  composed  before  the  se- 
cond half  of  the  twelfth  century,  does  not  seem  contaminated  in 
any  important  respect.    These  stories  are  touched  with  much  of 
the  natural  magic  which  ever  since  Matthew  Arnold's  famous 
essay  we  have  associated  with  the  Celtic  genius,  but,  despite  great 
beauty  of  detail,  which  illustrates  the  wild  fancy  and  vivid  sense 
of  color  that  are  features  of  the  Celtic  endowment,  in  reading  them 
one  cannot  but  be  reminded  of  the  proverbial  saying  that  "A. 
Kymro  [  i.  e.  Welshman  ]  has  imagination  enough  for  fifty  poets 
without  judgment  enough  for  one."    As  in  most  Celtic  stories, 
from  the  early  Irish  sagas  down  to  the  tales  which  J.  F.  Campbell 
collected  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  Western  Highlands  of 
Scotland,  the  main  impression  left  on  the  reader  is  one  of  dif- 
fuseness  and  incoherence.   Let  us  glance  rapidly  at  the  narrative 
of  Kulhwch  and  Olwen21  for  the  light  which  it  may  throw  on  the 
subject  of  the  relation  of  the  Arthurian  romances  to  the  Welsh 
tales.  Of  all  the  ancient  Welsh  stories  that  have  survived  it  is  best 
suited  to  that  purpose.   Here  we  have  a  genuine,  uncontaminated 
Welsh  tale  which  we  may  compare  with  the  French  romances  and 
thus  gain  a  measure  of  the  possible  influence  of  the  Welsh  stories 


20  In  The  Mabinogion,  pp.  347  ff.  (London,  1902)  A.  Nutt  has 
commented  on  some  of  these  features  of  the  three  tales.  He  remarks 
that,  as  in  the  French  biographical  romances,  in  these  tales"  the  centre 
of  interest  is  less  the  incident  than  the  hero  whose  personality  is  the 
chief,  if  not  the  sole,  connecting  link" 

41  Loth,  Mabinogion9,  I,  243  ff. 


48  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

on  the  latter.  Like  the  other  tales  of  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest, 
the  fourteenth  century  manuscript  which  has  preserved  to  us  the 
so-called  Mabinogion,  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  was  probably  written 
down  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  —  so  shortly  after  the 
period  in  which  the  Arthurian  romances  in  French  appear  to  have 
begun  —  but  it  was  manifestly  older  than  this  and  had  in  all  like- 
lihood been  current  in  substantially  the  same  form  for  at  least 
a  century  before.22  It  is  possible  that  Foerster  is  right  in  con- 
tending  that  the  interest  in  Arthur  inspired  by  the  French  ro- 
mances was  the  cause  of  the  writing  down  of  this  tale,  but  it  shows 
no  trace  of  their  influence,  so,  even  if  this  is  true,  the  circumstance 
is  immaterial. 

The  hero,  Kulhwch,  is  a  cousin  of  Arthur's.  He  has  fallen 
in  love  with  Olwen,  daughter  of  Yspaddaden  Penkawr,  merely 
from  report,  for  he  had  never  seen  her.  At  his  father's  instigation 
he  sets  out  for  Arthur's  court  to  ask  him  to  cut  his  hair  —  that 
is,  according  to  Welsh  custom,  to  adopt  him  as  his  godson  — 
and  to  assist  him  in  winning  the  hand  of  his  unseen  lady-love. 
The  journey  is  described  with  the  most  brilliant  play  of  fancy. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  description  of  the  dogs  that  accompanied 
the  young  prince:  "Before  him  were  two  brindled,  white-breasted 
greyhounds,  having  strong  collars  of  rubies  about  their  necks, 
reaching  from  the  shoulder  to  the  ear.  And  the  one  that  was  on  the 
left  side  bounded  across  to  the  right  side  and  the  one  on  the  right 
to  the  left,  and  like  two  sea-swallows  they  sported  around  him." 
And  similarly  it  is  said  of  the  steed  that  "he  cast  up  four  sods 
with  his  four  hoofs,  like  four  swallows  in  the  air,  about  his  head, 
now  above,  now  below.  About  him  was  a  four-cornered  cloth  of 
purple,  and  an  apple  of  gold  was  at  each  corner,  and  every  one 
of  the  apples  was  of  the  value  of  an  hundred  kine  upon  his  shoes, 
and  upon  his  stirrups  from  his  knee  to  the  tip  of  his  toe.  And 
the  blade  of  grass  bent  not  beneath  him,  so  light  was  his  courser's 
tread  as  he  journeyed  towards  the  gate  of  Arthur's  Palace." 


"  Loth,  ibid.,  p.  40,  dates  the  first  redaction  of  the  tale  in  the 
second  half  of  the  eleventh  century  or  beginning  of  the  twelfth  — 
so,  too,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  436  (1911),  after  full  discussion  of 
the  evidence. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  49 

He  demands  an  interview  with  the  king,  but  Glewlwyd  Ga- 
vaelvawr,  the  porter  who  guards  Arthur's  gate  on  New  Year's 
Day  —  the  day  of  the  prince's  arrival  —  will  not  admit  him 
within  the  precincts  of  the   palace,   where  the   king  is  engaged 
in  revelry  —  but  he  promises  him  suitable  entertainment  out- 
side.   "A  lady  shall  smooth  thy  couch,  and  shall  lull  thee  with 
songs;   and  early  to-morrow  morning,  when  the  gate  is  open  for 
the  multitude  that  came  hither  today,  for  thee  shall  it  be  opened 
first,  and  thou  mayest  sit  in  the  place  that  thou  shalt  choose  in 
Arthur's  hall."    The  young  man,   however,   insists  on  admission 
and  threatens,  if  his  request  is  not  granted,  that  he  will  set  up 
three  deadly  shouts  which  will  be  heard  throughout  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  and  which  will  render  the  women  of  the  palace  barren 
from  that  day  on.    The  porter,  then,  informs  Arthur  of  his  arri- 
val and  lauds  in  extravagant  terms  his  appearance,  so  that  con- 
trary to  Kay's  advice  the  king  admits  the  stranger,  who  rides  into 
the  hall  on  horseback  in  true  mediaeval  style.    The  young  prince 
then  asks  for  a   boon,   accompanying   his  petition   with  threats. 
Just  as  in  the  French  romances,  Arthur  pledges  himself  to  make 
this  don,  before  he  has  even  learned  what  the  stranger  is  going 
to  demand,  provided  only  that  he  does  not  ask  for  his  ship,  his 
mantle,   his  sword,  Caledvwlch   (i.   e.   Excalibur),   his   lance,   his 
shield,  his  dagger  and  his  wife.    Kulhwch  then  demands  the  assis- 
tance of  Arthur  and  his  warriors  in  obtaining  Olwen  as  his  bride. 
He  enumerates  these  warriors  in  a  list  six  or  seven  pages  long, 
which  doubtless  in  the  course  of  tradition  underwent  expansion 
from  time  to  time,  like  the  catalogue  of  the  ships  in  The  Iliad 
or  the  lists  of  peoples  and  princes  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  Widsith. 
The  most  familiar  characters  among  them   are  Kay   (Kai)  and 
Bedivere.    But  it  is  a  different  Kay  from  the  butt  of  the  French 
romances,  who  is  always  the  first  to  undertake  every  adventure 
announced  at  Arthur's  court  and  is  always  ignom iniously  over- 
thrown. Not  only  is  he  a  valiant  warrior  here  as  throughout  Welsh 
tradition,  but,  like  everyone  else  in  this  fantastic  tale,  he  has  mar- 
vellous qualities:  He  had  "this  peculiarity  that  his  breath  lasted 
nine  nights  and  nine  days  under  water,  and  he  could  exist  nine 
nights  and  nine  days  without  sleep.  A  wound  from  Kay's  sword 


50  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

no  physician  could  heal.  Very  subtle  was  Kay.  When  it  pleased 
him,  he  could  render  himself  as  tall  as  the  highest  tree  in  the 
forest.  And  he  had  another  peculiarity  —  so  great  was  the  heat 
of  his  nature,  that,  when  it  rained  hardest,  whatever  he  carried 
remained  dry  for  a  handbreadth  above  and  a  handbreadth  below 
his  hand;  and  when  his  companions  were  coldest,  it  was  to  them 
as  fuel  with  which  to  light  their  fires." 

Arthur  is  bound  by  his  promise  and  sends  forth  messengers 
to  every  land  within  his  dominions  to  seek  for  Olwen.  For  a  year 
the  search  is  vain  and  Kulhwch  begins  to  reproach  the  king  with 
the  failure.  Arthur  now  goes  forth  in  person  to  remove  the  dis- 
honor of  an  unfulfilled  promise  and  he  is  accompanied  by  the 
young  prince  and  a  band  of  his  followers,  including  a  guide  who 
was  "as  good  a  guide  in  a  land  he  had  never  seen  as  he  was  in 
his  own."  They  come  to  a  beautiful  castle,  which  proves  to  be 
that  of  Olwen's  father.  Near  it  is  a  flock  of  sheep  which  seemed 
endless  and  which  was  guarded  by  a  mastiff,  whose  fiery  breath 
was  as  devastating  as  that  of  a  dragon.  They  go  to  the  herdsman's 
house,  and  the  herdsman's  daughter  runs  out  with  joy  to  meet 
them  and  tries  to  throw  her  arms  about  Kay's  neck.  The  uncanny 
mastiff,  however,  had  probably  made  Kay  suspicious,  so  that 
he  had  provided  himself  with  a  billet,  and  when  she  endeavored 
to  embrace  him,  he  thrust  forward  the  log  instead.  It  was  lucky 
that  he  did  so,  for  she  squeezed  it  so  hard  that  it  became  a  twis- 
ted coil.  "Oh  woman,"  exclaimed  Kay  reproachfully,  "if  thou 
hadst  squeezed  me  thus,  none  could  ever  again  have  set  their  affec- 
tions on  me." 

By  the  assistance  of  this  maiden  they  have  an  interview  with 
Olwen,  whose  beauty  is  charmingly  described,  and  Kulhwch  ob- 
tains from  her  a  promise  of  marriage,  if  he  will  fulfill  the  con- 
ditions which  her  father  imposes.  The  father  cannot  see  his  fu- 
ture son-in-law  until  the  latter  has  raised  his  eyebrows  which  have 
fallen  over  his  eyes  —  these  eyebrows  being  usually  supported 
by  forks.  On  the  fourth  day  the  father,  after  the  manner  of  the 
fairy- tales,  announces  all  sorts  of  extravagant  conditions  for  the 
achievement  of  his  daughter's  hand.  The  lover  is,  of  course,  not 
deterred  and  insists  that  they  will  all  prove  easy.   The  crowning 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  51 

condition,  however,  is  stated  as  follows:  "Throughout  the  world 
there  is  not  a  comb  or  scissors  with  which  I  can  arrange  my  hair, 
on  account  of  its  rankness,  except  the  comb  and  scissors  that  are 
between  the  two  ears  of  Twrch  Trwyth,  the  son  of  Prince  Tared. 
He  will  not  give  them  of  his  own  free  will,  and  thou  wilt  not  be 
able  to  compel  him.  This  Twrch  Trwyth  turns  out  to  be  a  mar- 
vellous wild  boar  —  doubtless  a  parallel  to  the  classical  Mino- 
taur — 23  with  one  parent  a  man  and  the  other  a  beast  —  the  same 
that  we  have  heard  of  already  in  Nennius  —  the  Tortain  of  the 
Conte  del  Graal.2* 

In  the  tale  of  Kulhwch  and  Olwen,  as  in  Nennius,  Arthur's 
dog,  Caval  or  Cabal,  also  takes  part  in  the  chase  of  the  boar.  In 
order  to  catch  Twrch  Trwyth,  still  other  extravagant  conditions 
are  stated.  Suffice  it  to  say,  however,  that  in  the  end,  by  the  help 
of  Arthur  and  his  hosts,  the  young  prince  overcomes  all  difficulties 
and  wins  the  hand  of  his  bride,  although  at  the  expense  of  her 
father's  life,  whose  fate  it  was  that  he  should  die  a  violent  death, 
as  soon  as  all  the  above-mentioned  conditions  had  been  fulfilled.25 


28 
34 


Cp.  G.  Paris,  Romania,  XXVIII,  217,  note. 

J.  Rhys,  Celtic  Folklore,  II,  521  (Oxford,  1901),  identifies 
Twrch  Trwyth  with  "Ore  treith"  in  Cormac's  Irish  Glossary.  The 
latter  means  "King's  Boar".  The  hunting  of  Twrch  Trwyth  is  des- 
cribed so  exactly  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  that  it  is  possible  to  trace 
its  course  (in  essentials)  on  a  modern  map  of  Wales.  Cp.  Rhys,  ibid.f 
pp.  509  ff.  On  the  local  coloring  of  the  Mabinogion  and  the  local 
legends  which  they  embody,  see  too,  E.  Anwyl,  "The  Four  Branches 
of  the  Mabinogi",  Zs.  f.  celt.  Ph.,  I,  277  ff.  (1897).  His  "Notes  on 
Kulhwch  and  Olwen"  in  the  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIV,  132ff.  (1913) 
are  purely  textual  in  character. 

"  As  regards  the  relations  of  the  French  romances  to  Welsh 
literature  it  is  desirable  to  note  that  F.  Lot  has  cited  some  names 
in  the  French  romances  as  of  specifically  Welsh  origin:  Thus,  in  Ro- 
mania, XXIV,  322,  he  points  out  that  Lis  in  the  name  Chateau  de 
Lis  (first  continuation  to  Chretien's  Perceval  and  elsewhere.)  is  really 
Welsh  Llys  =  castle,  and  ibid.,  p.  326,  he  explains  the  personal  name 
Gorvain  Cadrut  (in  Meraugis  and  other  romances)  as  a  combination 
of  Welsh  Gwrvan  and  Cadrod  (Cadrawd).  For  Welsh  din,  dinas 
(=  fortified  place),  in  the  names  Dinas,  Dinan  (Beroul's  Tristan) 
cp.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  337,  but  cp.,  also,  the  glossary  to  Bedier's 
edition  of  Beroul   under  Lidan.     So,   too,   with   reference  to  Dinas- 


52  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

We  have  taken  now  a  hasty  survey  of  mediaeval  Welsh  lite- 
rature, as  far  as  it  bears  on  our  subject,  and  we  have  only  to 
add  that  the  literature  of  the  Bretons  of  which,  as  was  said  above, 
nothing  has  come  down  to  us  from  this  period  did  not  probably 
differ  from  it  in  essentials.  Especially  in  the  matter  that  most 
concerns  us,  the  form  of  epic  narrative,  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  with  the  Bretons  as  with  the  other  branches  of  the  Celtic 
race  this  was  the  prose  tale  and  not  narrative  in  verse,  as  was  the 
case  with  the  Germanic  tribes  or  the  Greeks  and  the  Italian  races. 
So,  for  instance,  the  Irish  epic  consists  of  the  famous  prose  sagas 
concerning  Conchobar,  Cuchullin,  and  the  rest;  and  the  only  branch 
of  the  Germanic  race  which  shows,  by  way  of  exception,  a  highly 
developed  prose  epic  is  that  which  at  a  comparatively  early  period 
underwent  Irish  influence  —  namely,  the  Norsemen.26  It  will 
be  necessary  in  the  following  to  remember  this  peculiarity  of  the 
Celtic  literatures.27 

%.  The  Lays* 

We  have  seen,  then,  what  is  the  form  of  the  narrative  lite- 
rature of  the  Celtic  races,  as  it  is  actually  preserved.  Let  us  turn 
now  to  the  consideration  of  a  more  or  less  hypothetical  genre  of 
this  literature,  about  which  Arthurian  controversy  has  waged  most 
bitterly,  since  it  has  been  regarded  as  most  closely  connect- 
ed with  the  origin  of  the  Arthurian  romances.  I  refer  to 
the  Celtic  lais.  The  difficulty  is  that  we  have  French  lais 
from  the  twelfth  century  down,  like  those  of  Marie  de  France 
—  lais  that  are  often  said  to  be  based  on  lais  bretons  —  but  we 
have  no  such  pieces  in  extant  Celtic  literature,  and  leaving  aside 

diron  (Dinatiron)  of  the  Roman  de  Troie  (son  of  Priam),  as  against 
Lot,  Romania,  XXX,  195  (1901),  G.  Baist,  Romanische  Forschungen, 
XXIX,  319  L  (1910),  sees  here  the  influence  of  Dinas,  supposed  name 
of  the  penitent  thief,  who  was  crucified  with  Christ.  But  this  is  not  probable. 

28  Cp.  Andreas  Heusler,  "Die  Anfange  der  islandischen  Saga" 
in  the  Abhandlungen  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  Philos.-Historische  Klasse, 
Jahrgang  1913,  no.  9.  He  concludes  that  the  Norse  prose  saga-form  was 
derived  from  the  Irish,  although  we  cannot  point  to  specific  borrowings. 

27  Zimmer,  reviewing  G.  Paris's  treatise  on  the  Arthurian  ro- 
mances in  verse  (Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France,  vol.  30)  in  the 
Gottingische  G.  A.  for  Oct.  1,  1890,  was  the  first  scholar  to  lay 
stress  on  this  in  Arthurian  discussion. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  53 

for  the  moment  the  word,  Breton,  the  very  meaning  of  the  word, 
lai,  is  the  subject  of  debate.28  Suffice  it  here  to  say  that  the  most 
probable  etymology  so  far  suggested29  identifies  it  with  the  Irish 
loid  or  laid  —  which  seems  to  mean  "song"  —  and  so,  no  doubt, 
lai  meant  "song." 

Before  discussing,  however,  this  question  of  the  lais,  it  will 
be  well  to  indicate  briefly  the  character  at  least  of  the  French 
poems  so  designated  by  giving  an  outline  of  one  of  them.  We 
may  remark,  in  passing,  that  they  are  all  in  octosyllabic  couplets, 
but  vary  greatly  in  length.  I  will  select  for  the  purpose  the  first 
in  the  collection  of  Marie  de  France,  and  one  of  the  longest,  na- 
mely, Guigemar,  a  poem  of  886  lines.  Whatever  theory  we  may 
hold  as  to  the  origin  of  the  story,  it  is  evident  that  in  Maries 
version  it  has  been  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  twelfth  century 
feudal  society: 

Guigemar30  is  the  son  of  the  lord  of  Liun  (Leon)  in  Brit- 
tany and  he  serves  his  apprenticeship  in  knighthood  at  the  court 
of  Hoilas  (Hoel),  king  of  that  country.  After  he  is  dubbed  knight, 
he  takes  part  in  a  military  expedition  in  Flanders,  and  distingui- 
shes himself  in  the  highest  degree.  He  has  one  fault,  however:  he 
is  wholly  insensible  to  love.  After  a  time  he  goes  home  to  his 
parents  and  whilst  there  engages  in  the  chase.  On  one  occasion, 
being  separated  from  his  companions,  he  sees  a  beautiful  white 
doe  which  he  shoots  at.    The  arrow  wounds  the  animal  mortally, 


38  The  history  of  the  discussion  of  the  word  is  given  in  Karl 
Warnke's  second  edition  of  the  Lais  of  Marie  de  France,  p.  vi. 

29  Proposed  by  H.  d'Arbois  de  Jubainville.  Cp.  Romania,  VIII, 
422  ff.  (1879). 

80  The  text  stands  first  in  Warnke's  edition.  The  fullest  dis- 
cussion of  the  name  is  H.  Zimmer's  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XIII1, 
7ff.  (1891).  Zimmer  identifies  it  —  correctly,  no  doubt  —  with  the 
Breton,  Guilhomar.  On  the  other  hand,  though  granting  that  the 
tale  is  Breton,  J.  Loth  maintains,  Annales  de  Bretagne,  XI,  479 
(1895 — 6),  that  the  name,  Guigemar,  can  just  as  well  be  Cornish. 
It  occurs,  indeed,  as   Wihumar  in  Domesday  Book. 

Variant  forms  of  this  name,  viz.  Guigamor  (Guiagamar),  Guiomar 
(Guionmar),  appear  elsewhere  in  Arthurian  texts.  On  this  subject, 
cp.,  besides  Zimmer,  op.  cit.,  E.  Freymond,  in  the  same  journal,  XVII  *, 
pp.  17  ff.  (1895),  and  W.  Hertz,  Spielmannsbuch*,  p.  382. 


54  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

but,  strange  to  say,  rebounds  and  wounds  Guigemar  also  severely 
in  the  thigh,  so  that  he  has  to  descend  from  his  horse.  To  his 
astonishment,  the  dying  doe  speaks  to  him  and  predicts  that  he 
will  never  recover,  save  through  a  lady  whom  he  will  love  and  who 
will  love  him  in  return,  but  this  mutual  passion  will  cause  them 
unheard-of  sorrow.  Guigemar  gets  rid  of  his  servant  by  sending 
him  after  the  other  huntsmen  and  he,  himself,  strikes  through 
the  forest  until  he  arrives  at  the  seashore.  He  sees  there  a  beauti- 
fully appointed  ship  with  no  human  being  about  it.  He  lays 
himself  down  in  a  magnificent  bed  in  the  ship,  with  the  intention 
of  resting,  but  before  he  is  aware,  the  ship  is  out  on  the  high  sea, 
and  it  moves  on  until  about  evening  he  finds  himself  before  an 
ancient  city,  which  was  the  capital  of  the  land.  The  lord  of  the 
city  was  an  old  man  with  a  young  wife  whom  he  kept  shut  up 
in  a  castle,  accessible  by  only  one  entrance  and  that  from  the  sea. 
Her  only  companions  were  a  niece  and  an  old  priest  who  was  a 
eunuch.  Now,  the  day  of  Guigemar's  arrival  the  lady  and  her 
damsel  were  walking  in  the  enclosed  garden  which  was  attached 
to  the  castle  and  they  saw  the  strange  boat  approaching.  When 
the  boat  has  reached  the  castle,  the  damsel  enters  it,  observes  the 
wounded  knight  and  returns  to  tell  her  mistress.  They  both  go 
down  now,  Guigemar  awakes  and  tells  his  story,  and  they  take 
him  to  the  damsel's  room  and  keep  him  there.  Soon  his  wound 
ceases  to  pain  him,  but  he  is  pierced  to  the  quick  by  the  arrows 
of  love.  The  damsel  perceives  that  her  lady  and  the  stranger  love 
each  other  and  she  exhorts  the  latter  to  disclose  his  love.  This 
he  does  and  the  two  live  in  happiness  for  a  year  and  a  half.  But 
the  lady  has  all  along  the  feeling  that  their  amour  will  be  detected 
and  that  they  will  be  doomed  to  separation.  So  she  makes  a  knot 
in  the  shirt  of  her  lover  and  compels  him  to  promise  that,  if 
they  are  ever  separated,  he  will  love  no  woman  who  cannot  un- 
tie this  knot.  He,  on  his  part,  gives  her  a  girdle  and  requires  of  her 
a  similar  promise:  She  is  never  to  love  any  man  who  cannot 
undo  it. 

The  fears  of  the  lady  at  last  come  true.  That  very  day  a 
chamberlain  discovers  her  intrigue  and  informs  his  master.  Gui- 
gemar, when  caught,  tells  his  story  to  the  husband  and  puts  on  so 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  55 

bold  a  front  that  he  is  finally  allowed  to  embark  again  in  his 
boat.  He  reaches  home  again,  but  he  remains  melancholy  and, 
among  other  things,  refuses  to  entertain  the  idea  of  marriage, 
vowing  always  that  he  will  wed  no  woman,  unless  she  is  able  to 
untie  the  knot.  Ladies  come  from  all  sides,  but  none  are  able  to 
fulfill  the  condition. 

In  the  meanwhile  the  lady  of  the  castle  is  as  full  of  sorrow 
as  Guigemar,  and  this  continues  for  two  years.  She  resolves  at 
last  to  drown  herself  in  the  sea  at  the  point  from  which  her  lover 
had  set  forth.  She  goes  to  the  spot  and  finds  the  boat  there,  but 
the  thought  comes  over  her  that  Guigemar  perhaps  is  drowned 
and  she  falls  into  the  boat  in  a  swoon.  The  boat  takes  her  to 
Brittany,  to  the  castle  of  a  lord,  named  Meriaduc,  who  soon  falls 
in  love  with  her.  She  rejects  him,  however,  alleging  as  an  excuse 
her  vow  about  the  girdle.  This  leads  him  to  tell  her  of  the  strange 
knight  in  this  land  who  has  made  a  similar  vow  about  the  knot 
in  his  shirt.  The  news  that  her  lover  is  so  near  causes  her  to  swoon. 
After  this  one  knight  after  another  tries  to  unloose  the  girdle, 
but  without  success.  Finally  Meriaduc  proclaims  a  tournament 
and  summons  Guigemar  to  fight  on  his  side.  He  comes  —  he 
and  his  lady  recognize  each  other,  but  hold  back  —  then  Meriaduc 
exhorts  her  to  try  the  knot  in  Guigemar's  shirt.  She  unties  it  at 
once.  Her  lover  now  learns  that  no  one  as  yet  has  undone  the 
girdle  and  he  demands  her  of  Meriaduc,  who  refuses.  Thereupon 
Guigemar  and  the  assembled  knights  declare  themselves  against 
Meriaduc.  They  besiege  and  capture  his  castle  —  they  put  to 
death  Meriaduc  and  the  garrison  —  and  finally  the  two  lovers 
are  united  for  good  and  all. 

This,  then,  is  a  specimen  of  the  French  lais.  Even  in  such 
an  abstract  as  this  not  all  of  the  wild  interest  of  the  story  is  lost, 
but  one  must  read  the  original  to  catch  the  charm  of  its  naivete, 
which  effaces  completely  the  boundaries  between  fairyland  and 
actual  life,  and  of  the  simple,  direct  story  of  passion,  which, 
neither  hasting  nor  lingering,  goes  straight  to  the  mark.  If  one 
were  asked  to  name  the  books  which  represent  best  the  romantic 
charm  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  wisest  answer,  perhaps,  would  be 
the  lais31  of  Marie  de  France  and  Gottfried  of  Strassburg's  Tristan. 


1' 


56  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Of  this  admirable  poetess,  whose  naive  grace  cast  its  spell  over 
Goethe  in  his  old  age,  we  know  little  more  than  her  name,  her 
nationality,  and  her  works.  We  may  safely  affirm,  however,  that 
the  unnamed  king  to  whom  she  dedicates  her  lays  in  her  pro- 
logue was  Henry  II  of  England  (1154 — 1189).  The  designation, 
"de  France,"  seems  to  show,  moreover,  that  she  was  of  royal 
blood.32  Indeed,  she  has  been  plausibly  identified33  with  an  ille- 
gitimate half-sister  of  Henry  II's,  on  the  paternal  side,  who  was 
abbess  of  Shaftesbury  from  as  early  as  1181  and  was  still  alive 
as  late  as  1215. 

Let  us  return  now,  however,  to  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
the  French  lais. 

Apart  from  other  considerations,  convincing  testimony  to  the 
fact  that  stories  concerning  Arthur  and  his  followers  were  current 
among  the  Normans  both  in  England  and  on  the  Continent  about 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  is  supplied  by  various  passages 


81  The  little  that  we  can  gather  about  Marie  de  France  from 
her  poems  is  best  summarized  by  Miss  Edith  Rickert:  Marie  de  France: 
Seven  of  her  Lays  done  into  English,  pp.  137  ff.,  (New  York,  1901). 
Emil  Winkler  in  his  Marie  de  France,  Sitzungsberichte  of  the  Vienna 
Academy,  Philosoph.-Hist.  Klasse,  188  Band,  3  Abhandlung  (1918), 
endeavors  to  identify  her  with  Marie  de  Champagne,  patroness  of 
Chretien  de  Troyes.  On  this  improbable  theory,  however,  see  Giulio 
Bertoni,  "Maria  di  Francia",  Nuova  Antologia  for  Sept.  1,  1920, 
pp.  18  ff.  Scholars  differ  as  to  whether  her  dialect  is  pure  French 
or  Franco -Norman.  It  seems  most  probable  that  she  was  from  Nor- 
mandy or  from  the  part  of  the  Isle  de  France  that  borders  on  Nor- 
mandy. Cp.  T.  A.  Jenkins's  edition  of  her  L'Espurgatoire  Seint 
Patriz,  pp.  21  ff.  (Philadelphia,  1894)  for  a  discussion  of  her  language 
and  for  previous  literature  on  the  subject  —  also,  Bertoni,  loc.  cit. 

32  Cp.  Marguerite  de  France,  daughter  of  Louis  VII  of  France 
and  wife  of  Prince  Henry  of  England,  Henry  H's  oldest  sod  —  Blanche 
de  France,  daughter  of  Louis  IX,  king  of  France  and  wife  of  the  In- 
fanta of  Castile  —  and  many  other  royal  personages  in  later  history. 
Elise  Richter,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.  XL  728  ff.  (in  her  review  of  Winkler), 
disputes,  unconvincingly,  that  the  designation  was  limited  to  royal 
personages. 

88  By  John  Charles  Fox,  "Marie  de  France"  English  Histo- 
rical Review,  XXV,  303  ff.  (1910)  and  "Mary,  Abbess  of  Shaftes- 
bury", ibid.,  XXVI,  317  ff.  (1911). 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  57 

in  Wace's  Brut,  a  work  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  finished  in 
1155.  First  the  famous  passage  (11.  9994 ff.)  which  contains  the 
earliest  recorded  mention  of  the  Round  Table: 

Por  les  nobles  barons  qu'il  ot 

Dont  cascuns  mieldre  estre  quidot  .  .  . 

Fist  Artus  la  Roonde  Table, 

Dont  Breton  dient  mainte  fable. 

Illoc  seoient  li  vassal 

Tuit  chievalment  et  tot  ingal  .  .  . 

Nus  d'als  ne  se  pooient  vanter 

Qu'il  seist  plus  halt  de  son  per. 

And  then  again  (11.  10032ff.): 

En  cele  grant  pais  que  jo  di, 
Ne  sai  se  vos  l'aves  oi, 
Furent  les  merveilles  provees 
Et  les  aventures  trovees 
Qui  d'Artu  sont  tant  racontees 
Que  a  fable  sunt  atornees: 
Ne  tot  menconge  ne  tot  voir 
Ne  tot  folie  ne  tot  savoir; 
Tant  ont  li  conteor  conte 
Et  li  fableor  tant  fable 
Pour  lor  contes  ambeleter 
Que  tout  ont  feit  fables  sanbler. 

A  mong  the  followers  of  Arthur  who  perished  in  his  last  battle 
Wace  includes  (11.  13  675  f.): 

cil  de  la  Table  Roonde 

Dont  tex  los  fu  par  tot  le  monde84). 

What  was  the  form  now  of  these  Celtic  stories  —  the  term, 
Breton,  we  shall  see,  is  somewhat  ambiguous  —  to  which  Wace 
alludes?35    In  his  treatise  on  the  metrical  romances,36  mentioned 


3*  "Those  of  the  Round  Table,  of  whom  there  was  such  praise 
throughout  the  world." 

86  Besides  the  two  passages  just  quoted,  cp.  too,  Wace,  11. 
10  401ff.  and  11.  10  555  f.  (reference  to  the  Round  Table).  G.  Huet, 
Moyen  Age,  XIX,  234  f.  (1916),  "Notes  d'histoire  litteraire.  I.  Le 
temoignage  de  Wace  sur  les  fables  arthuriennes",  remarks  that  the 
terms,  "merveiller"  and  "aventures",  correspond  exactly  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  French  Arthurian  romances  and  prove  the  existence  of 
such  tales  among  the  Celts  before  Chretien  and  independently  of 
Geoffrey. 


58  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

above,  Gaston  Paris  interprets  them  as  embracing  both  lais  of  the 
French  kind  (short  narrative  poems)  and  informal  prose  tales 
told  by  professional  storytellers  who  haunted  castle  and  inn.  The 
existence  of  the  prose  tales  is  beyond  dispute,  as  is  made  clear 
enough  by  the  passages  which  Paris  himself  cites;37  it  is  only  a 
question  of  the  lais.  That  these,  whatever  their  character,  were 
set  to  music  is  manifest  from  passages  in  the  French  lais  —  as 
when  it  is  said  at  the  end  of  Guigemar: 

De  cest  cunte  qu'oi  avez 
Fu  Guigemar  li  lais  trovez 
Que  hum  dit  en  harpe  e  en  rote 
Bone  en  est  a  oir  la  note. 

It  is  evident  still  further  that  the  instruments  to  which  they 

were  usually  sung  were  the  Celtic  rote  —  a  rude  kind  of  violin  — 

and  the  harp,  but  especially  the  former.  As  we  have  already  seen, 

however,  there  is  no  epic  narrative  in  verse  in  extant  Welsh  or 

Irish  literature  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  Bretons 

differed  from  their  Celtic  kinsmen  of  the  British  Isles  in  this 

matter;  so  what  do  the  writers  of  the  French  lais  mean  by  their 

citation  of  lais  Bretons  in  connection  with  their  own  poems  ?38 

It  would  seem  most  probable  that  the  Celtic  lays  referred  to  were 

simply  lyrical  pieces  set  to  music  concerning  the  characters  who 

are  told  of  in  the  lais  of  Marie  de  France  and  others.   In  singing 


37 


Histoire   litteraire  de  la  France.  XXX,  lit  (1888). 
Op.    cit.}    pp.  9ff.,    from   Thomas's   Tristan,    from  Chretien's 
Ere-Cy  from  the  continuation  of   his  Perceval  by  Wauchier  de  Denain 
(Gaucher  de  Dourdan),  and  from  still  others. 

38  It  was  natural  that  Gaston  Paris,  who  had  no  firsthand  know- 
ledge of  Celtic  literature,  should  have  mistaken  the  force  of  these 
allusions  and  assumed  that  they  referred  to  narrative  poems  in  a 
Celtic  language  of  the  same  character  as  the  French  lais  themselves. 
But,  on  the  whole,  the  assumption  seems  unjustified.  As  Warnke  has 
pointed  out,  pp.  XXVI  ff.,  Marie  de  France,  for  instance,  does  not  say 
that  she  is  translating  or  paraphrasing  a  lai  Bretun:  she  says  that 
she  is  following  the  cuntes  or  tales  from  which  the  lais  too,  it  seems, 
sprang:  So,  for  example,  near  the  beginning  of  her  collection  she  uses 
the  following  words:  "The  tales  which  I  know  to  be  true,  concerning 
which  the  Britons  have  made  the  lays,  I  will  relate  to  you  quite 
briefly. " 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  59 

such  a  piece,  the  singer  would  find  it  necessary  to  recite  in  prose 
the  story  to  which  the  poem  related.  This  would  be  the  case  es- 
pecially, of  course,  if  the  Breton  singer  were  singing  before 
French-speaking  audiences  who  did  not  know  the  legends  of  his 
race.  There  is,  in  all  probability,  then,  no  reason  for  trying  to 
distinguish  between  epical  and  lyrical  lais,  as  has  sometimes  been 
done.  There  were,  we  may  assume,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  only  lyri- 
cal lais  in  the  Celtic  language  and  the  term  was  extended  by 
Marie  de  France  and  her  fellows  to  the  short  narrative  poems 
in  French  which  they  composed;  but  this  poetical  genre  had  really 
nothing  to  correspond  to  it  in  the  Celtic  and  was  their  own  inde- 
pendent invention.  In  French  literature,  besides,  the  word,  lai, 
continued  often  to  designate  brief  lyrical  pieces  (chansons)  as  we 
have  just  assumed  that  it  did  in  the  Celtic.  Indeed,  lai  in  the 
sense  of  tale  (conte)  was  never  very  popular  in  France  and  passed 
out  of  use  altogether  by  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  or  first  quarter 
of  the  fourteenth  century.39 

Granting  that  the  French  lays  embody  tales  that  eame  to 
their  authors  from  Celtic  sources  —  and  this  is  certainly  true  of 
some  of  them,  at  least  —  it  remains  for  us  to  inquire  from  what 
division  of  the  Celts  did  the  French  poets  derive  these  tales.  Was 
it  from  the  Celts  of  Great  Britain  or  of  Brittany  (Armorica)? 
The  answer  to  the  question  turns  on  the  meaning  of  the  term, 
Breton,  which  qualifies  the  word,  lai,  in  the  references  of  Marie 
de  France  and  others  to  their  sources.  That  the  term,  in  some 
cases,  is  equivalent  to  Armorican  is  plain.  For  example,  the  names 
of  two  of  Marie's  lays  —  Bisclavret  (=Werewolf)  and  Laustic 
(=  Nightingale)  —  are  somewhat  distorted  Breton  words  and  could 
not  come  from  the  Welsh.40    Furthermore,  the  name,  Guigemar, 

**  In  only  five  of  her  lays  does  Marie  use  lai  as  a  synonym 
of  conte.  Cp.  Foulet,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXIX,  303  f.  He  traces  there 
her  hesitating  adoption  of  the  term  in  this  sense.  He  points  out, 
p.  311,  its  very  limited  use  in  the  anonymous  lays.  In  Italian  lai 
meant  lament.    Cp.  0.  M.Johnston,  Studj  Medievali,  H,  554ff.  (1907). 

40  This  was  first  pointed  out  by  Zimmer  in  the  Gottingische 
Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  Oct.  1,  1890,  pp.  800f.  The  article  is  of  the 
first  importance  with  reference  to  the  origin  of  the  lays.  So,  too,  is 
the  same  writer's  "Beitrage  zur  Namenforschung  in  den  altfranzbsischen 
Arthurepen",  Zs,  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XIII  \  Iff.  (1891). 


60  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

occurs  in  numerous  historical  documents  in  Brittany  from  the 
early  eleventh  century  down  and  not  in  Wales.41  In  the  case  of 
still  other  lays  —  Equitan,  Lanval,  Les  Dous  Amanz,  Eliduc  — 
geographical  allusions  connect  them  definitely  with  Brittany.42 
These  observations  afford  irrefragable  proof  that  in  the  particular 
cases  the  word,  Breton  (Bretun),  is  synonomous  with  Armorican. 
Indeed,  a  comprehensive  inquiry  into  the  subject  has  shown  that, 
in  the  general  usage  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  terms  Bretagne, 
Breton,  and  their  Latin  equivalents43  were  employed  only  of  con- 
temporary Brittany  and  its  inhabitants  and  language,  or,  retro- 
spectively, of  Great  Britain  before  and  during  the  period  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  conquest  and  of  the  ancient  Celtic  population  that 
inhabited  it.44  Consequently,  when  Marie  de  France  and  her  con- 
temporaries refer  to  lais  Bretons  as  their  sources,  they  have  Brit- 
tany in  mind,  and  their  own  lays  are,  accordingly,  based  on  Breton 
stories,  as  far  as  they  are  of  Celtic  origin  at  all.  It  is  true  that 
Marie  and  her  fellows  sometimes  localize  the  plots  of  their  lays 
in  Great  Britain.  For  example,  Chievrefueil  (Honeysuckle),  in 
which  Tristan  sends  down  stream  to  Iseult  messages  carved  on 
pieces  of  wood,  is  connected  with  Tintagel  (in  Cornwall);  in  Yonec 
(and  in  L'Espine,  under  the  influence  of  Yonec)*5   Caerleon  (in 


41  Cp.  Zimmer's  last  named  article,  pp.  Iff. 

42  Cp.  Zimmer,  Gott.  G.  A.,  for  October  1,  1890,  pp.  797ff. 
48  Brito,  Brittanicus,  Britannia, 

44  These  are  the  conclusions  of  Brugger's  article,  "Uber  die  Be- 
deutung   von   Bretagne,    Breton    in    mittelalterlichen   Texten",    Zs.  f. 

frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XX1,  79  ff.  (1898).  One  has  to  except  Britannia, 
used  as  a  name  for  Great  Britain  in  learned  writings.  Still  further, 
as  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  508  ff.  (1895),  and  in  his  reply  to  Brugger, 
entitled  "La  Patrie  des  lais  bretons",  ibid.,  xxviii,  Iff.  (1899),  has 
shown,  these  archaic  terms,  Britones,  lingua  Britannica,  Britannia 
are,  also,  occasionally  applied  to  contemporary  Wales,  its  people  and 
its  language,  respectively,  in  the  Latin  writings  of  Welshmen,  (Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  etc.).  For  a  full  bibliography  of 
the  controversy  over  the  meaning  of  Breton,  etc.,  see  Miss  Hopkins's 
dissertation,  pp.  114ff.  Brugger,  like  Zimmer,  is  an  advocate  of  the- 
Armorican  origin  of  the  stories  told  in  the  French  lays. 

45  Cp.  Foulet,  Zs.  /.  rom.  Ph.,  XXIX.,  36. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  61 

Wales)  and  St.  Aaron's  church  in  that  city  are  mentioned.46  But 
such  localizations  were  merely  innovations  of  the  French  poets, 
under  the  all-pervading  influence  of  Geoffrey  or  Wace.47 

Again,  two  of  Marie's  lays  bear  alternative  titles,  English  and 
French,  for  the  poetess  says  of  Chievrefueil  that  the  French  call 
it  by  that  name,  but  that  the  English  call  it  Gotelef  (Honeysuckle), 
and  of  Laustic  that  the  French  call  it  Russignol,  but  the  English 
Nihtegale  (Nightingale).18 

G.  Paris  drew49  from  this  latter  circumstance  the  far-reaching 
inference  that  even  before  the  Norman  Conquest  Welsh  musicians 
had  spread  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  a  knowledge  of  the  stories 
with  which  the  lays  deal.  But  in  this  matter,  also,  as  it  turns  out, 
we  have  merely  another  mark  of  Wace's  influence  —  an  imitation 
of  his  trick  of  giving  names  in  different  languages,50  as,  for  in- 


46 


In  his  articles,  "De  la  provenance  des  lais  dits  bretons", 
Romania,  XXIV,  513  ff.  (1895)  and  "La  patrie  des  lais  bretons", 
ibid.,  XXVIII,  321  ff.  (1899),  Lot  tried  to  establish  a  Welsh  or  Cornish 
origin  for  some  of  the  lays,  such  as  Yonec,  Chievrefeuil,  L'Espine, 
Le  Cor. 

47  This  is  Brugger's  suggestion.  Cp.  his  last-cited  article,  pp.147  ff. 
As  he  points  out,  this  influence  is  patent  in  the  case  of  Marie's  Milun, 
where  she  says  that  her  hero  was  known  "in  Ireland  and  in  Norway 
and  Guhtlande  [i.  e.  the  island  of  Gotland  in  the  Baltic],  in  Loengres 
li.  e.  Logres,  name  for  England  in  the  romances]  and  in  Albania 
[i.  e.  Scotland]".  This  enumeration  was  taken  indisputably  from  Geoffrey's 
list  of  Arthur's  conquests,  Book  IX,  ch.  10,  or,  possibly,  Wace's  diffuse 
paraphrase  of  the  same,  11.  9900  ff.  Especially  significant  is  the 
occurrence  of  the  Baltic  island  in  both  lists. 

48  Through  a  slip,  G.  Paris,  Hist.  Litt.,  XXX,  7,  cited,  also, 
Bisclavret  as  an  example,  for  Marie  says  that  the  Normans  called  this 
lay  Garulf  (Garual).  But  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  English 
origins. 

A9  hoc,  cit.,  and,  before  this,  in  Romania,  XIV,  604 ff. 

So  Lucien  Foulet,  "English  Words  in  the  Lais  of  Marie  de 
France",  MLN,  XX,  109  ff.  (1905).  He  points  out  the  example  here 
cited  —  also,  another  in  the  episode  of  Hengist's  treachery  towards 
Vortigern  (11.  7409  ff.),  where  Wace  explains  (11.  7473  ff.)  that  the 
English  call  the  knives  which  Hengist's  men  used  sexes  (=  Anglo- 
Saxon  seaxas),  the  French  costiax.  Foulet  points  out  still  other 
mannerisms  of  Wace  which  Marie  imitates.  —  The  trick  just  discussed 


62  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

stance,  when  in  speaking  of  the  famous  dolmens  or  prehistoric 
temples  at  Stonehenge,  on  Salisbury  Plains,  in  England,  he  says 
(11.  8383  ff.):  "The  Britons  in  the  British  language  call  them 
Karole  as  gaians  [  i.  e.  Giants'  Dance  or  Round  ] ;  in  English  they 
are  called  Senhange  [i.  e.  Stonehenge];  in  French  Pierres  Pandues 
[i.  e.  Scattered  Stones]."  We  have  here  an  exact  parallel  to  the 
Lausiic  of  Marie  de  France,  where  the  title  of  the  poem  is  given 
first  in  Breton,  and  next  in  French  and  English. 

Although  Marie,  then,  derived  the  materials  for  some  of  her 
lays  from  Breton  sources,  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that 
she,  herself,  ever  came  into  personal  contact  with  Bretons.51  In 
any  event,  she  was  certainly  ignorant  of  the  Breton  language  — 
otherwise  she  would  not  have  distorted  Breton  bleiz  lauaret  (i.  e. 


is  not  confined  to  Wace  and  Marie.  It  is  found  in  other  mediaeval 
writers.     Cp.  Foulet,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXII,  275f.  (1908). 

Before  Foulet,  Warnke,  in  his  second  edition  of  Marie's  lays, 
p.  XXI  (1900),  and  Bedier,  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II,  127ff. 
(1905),  had  both  offered  unsatisfactory  explanations  of  the  alternative 
titles  of  the  above-mentioned  lays:  Warnke  suggests  that,  writing  in 
England  after  the  Norman  Conquest,  Marie  provided  her  poems  with 
the  alternative  titles  to  suit  either  a  French  or  English  audience  as 
the  case  might  be.  Similarly,  Bedier  —  only  he  ascribes  the  double 
naming  to  Breton  jongleurs  in  England.  For  criticism  of  Bedier's 
suggestion,  cp.  Foulet,  loc  cit. 

51  So  L.  Foulet,  in  his  article,  "Marie  de  France  et  les  lais 
bretons",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXIX,  319  ff.  (1905).  Ibid.,  315  ff.,  he 
shows  from  Guigemar,  11.  22  ff.  (compared  with  corresponding  ex- 
pressions in  her  Fables,  which  was,  of  course,  certainly  based  on  a 
written  source),  that  she  used  written  sources  —  doubtless,  French.  He 
has  proved,  too,  "Thomas  and  Marie  in  their  relation,  to  the  conteurs'% 
MLN,  XXIII,  205  ff.  (1908),  that  her  occasional  appeals  to  an  oral 
source  is  "a  meaningless  mannerism".  In  his  "Marie  de  France  et  la 
legende  de  Tristan",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXII,  274,  note  4  (1908), 
the  same  scholar  remarks  pertinently :  "Je  ne  trouve  dans  Marie  aucun 
texte  ou  elle  nous  affirme  avoir  entendu  la  mtme  personne,  ou  le 
meme  groupe  de  personnes,  chanter  la  'note'  et  raconter  le  conte  qu'elle 
se  propose  de  nous  repeter  en  vers  frangais  —  aucun  texte  ou  elle  nous 
affirme  avoir  entendu  un  Breton  chanter  ou  raconter,  quoique  se  soit.  .  .  * 
Ainsi  le  conteur  Breton  n'apparait  nulle  part  chez  Marie.  Les  musi- 
ciens  qui  faisaient  en  harpe  et  en  rote  le  lai  de  Guigemar  etaient- 
ils  bretons?  C'est  possible,  voila  tout  ce  qu'on  pent  dire." 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  63 

talking  wolf)  into  Bisclavret  —  the  name  of  her  werewolf -hero  — 
or  have  failed  to  see  that  the  L  of  Laustic  —  the  title  of  another 
one  of  her  lays  —  was  merely  the  French  article  prefixed  to 
Aostic,  the  Breton  word  for  "nightingale."52  It  is  evident,  there- 
fore, that  she  was  entirely  dependent  on  intermediate  written  ver- 
sions in  French  for  her  knowledge  of  these  Breton  stories.  And 
what  was  true  of  Marie  was,  no  doubt,  true  of  the  other  authors 
of  French  lays. 

Even  in  Marie's  collection  of  lays  there  are  some  which  have 
no  real  connection  with  Brittany.  Thus,  she,  herself,  tells  us  that 
the  incident  on  which  her  lay,  Les  Dous  Amanz  (=  The  Two 
Lovers),  is  based  occurred  in  Normandy.  When  she  adds  that  the 
Bretons  made  it  the  subject  of  a  lay,  one  begins  to  suspect  that 
the  term  lai  Breton  is  already  becoming  conventionalized53  and 
may  be  applied  to  any  short  narrative  poem  of  the  kind  which 
Marie  had  been  composing  on  genuine  Breton  themes.  One  may 
say  somewhat  the  same  thing  of  Le  Fraisne  (=  The  Ash)  — 
a  tale  with  no  distinctively  Breton  features,  which  the  poetess 
localizes  in  Brittany,  but  which  is  found  in  variant  forms  in  every 
part  of  the  world.  Above  all,  it  has  been  immortalized  by  Chaucer 
in  his  Patient  Griselda  (Clerk's  Tale).5i  What  we  have  suspec- 
ted here  in  the  case  of  these  two  lays  by  Marie  is  true,  beyond 
question,  of  the  lays  of  later  authors  in  this  genre:  the  term 
became  a  purely  conventional  one  with  the  meaning  just  indicated 

68  Cp.  Zimmer,  G.  G.  A.  for  Oct.  10,  1890,  pp.  800f.  G.Cohen, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXIV2,  3  (1902),  suggests  that  the  fusion 
of  the  article  with  the  noun  in  Laustic  may  have  been  the  work  of 
a  scribe,  but  the  equating  of  the  word  with  simple  russignol  and 
nihtegale  (without  articles)  at  the  beginning  of  the  lay  shows  that 
the  suggestion  is  groundless. 

63  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  5271  (1895),  makes  this  observation 
with  regard  to  this  lay  and  Le  Fraisne.  Ibid.,  p.  525,  however,  he 
cites  the  fact  that  in  UEspine  an  Irishman  is  said  to  have  sung  a 
lay  (Aelis),  as  proof  that  the  Irish  took  part  in  the  propagation  of 
lays,  but  the  Irish  had  long  before  figured  in  the  romances  —  especially 
since  the  appearance  of  the  Tristan  poems  —  so  we  doubtless  have 
in  this  instance,  too,  a  purely  conventional  use  of  the  term,  lai. 

54  With  this  story  in  Le  Fraisne  is  combined  the  widespread 
popular  notion  that  twins  are  always  the  offspring  of  different  fathers. 


64  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  the  Celtic  coloring  in  such  poems  is,  if  not  invariably,  cer- 
tainly more  often  than  not,  purely  factitious.55 

A  main  factor  in  rendering  the  use  of  the  term,  lai  Breton, 
a  popular  literary  artifice  was  Thomas's  poem  on  Tristan,  com- 
posed about  1170.56  Here,  probably  under  the  influence  of 
Marie  de  France,  that  writer  makes  his  British  hero  an  accomplish- 
ed harper  who  charms  audiences  with  his  lays,  and  so  it  was 
the  example  of  Tristan,  the  most  popular  figure  in  the  literature 
of  the  time,  that  led  subsequent  poets  to  represent  their  charac- 
ters as  singing  lais  bretons,  or  even  to  designate  their  works  by 
that  title  as  in  the  case  of  the  French  versions  of  Havelok  and 
Horn,  which  have,  of  course,  no  connection  with  Brittany. 

Marie  is  the  only  author  of  genuine  narrative  lays57  whose 
name  has  been  preserved.  We  have,  however,  besides  the  collec- 
tion which  is  unquestionably  her  work,  a  number  of  anonymous 
lays58  of  the  same  character,  one  or  two  of  which  may  be  also 
from  her  pen.  Some  of  these  pieces  deal  with  the  matiere  de 
Bretagne  and  have  much  the  same  charm  of  ,, faerie"  —  the  charm 
of  wild  and  delicate  fancy  —  that  we  have  noted  in  Marie's  re- 
cognized works.  So  in  the  story  of  Guingamor  (probably  Marie's), 
where,  after  enjoying  the  love  of  a  fay  in  the  Otherworld  for 
a  hundred  years,  that  passed  like  three  days,  the  hero  is  allow- 
ed to  return  to  his  native  land,  but  by  disobeying  the  command 
of  his  mistress  not  to  partake  of  mortal  food,  whilst  there,  loses 
both  his  apparent  gift  of  immortal  youth  and  the  power  to  return 
to  her  —  or,  again,  in  Tydorel,  where  a  king,  the  son  of  a  water- 


55  In  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  this  has  been  clearly 
established  by  L.  Foulet  in  his  "Marie  de  France  et  les  lais  bretons", 
Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXIX,  19ff.,  293ff.  (1905)  and  his  subsequent  ar- 
ticles on  the  lais  bretons  in  the  same  journal,  vols.  XXX  and  XXXII. 

88  Cp.,  especially,  Foulet,  „Marie  de  France  et  la  legende  de 
Tristan",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.r  XXXII,  161  ff.,  257ff.  (1908). 

B7  he  Cor  by  Robert  Biket  (Biquet)  in  verses  of  six  syllables, 
last  edited  by  H.  Dorner  (Strafcburg  diss.,  1907),  is  a  fabliau,  and 
Ignaure  by  Renaut,  also,  does  not  belong  properly  to  the  genre. 
We  know  nothing  of  these  authors,  save  their  names. 

*8  For  these  lays  and  the  critical  literature  relating  to  them 
see  Part  IV,  below. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  65 

sprite  and  a  mortal  mother,  on  being  taunted  once  with  not  being 
human,  since,  in  consequence  of  his  supernatural  origin,  he  never 
sleeps,  learns  with  mortification  the  true  secret  of  his  birth  from 
his  mother  and  plunges  into  his  father's  lake,  never  to  be  heard 
of  again. 

There  is  something  suspicious  in  the  fact  that  out  of  the 
seven  anonymous  lays  that  deal  with  the  matiere  de  Bretagne 
three  constitute  variants  of  themes  which  Marie  has  treated.59 
The  choice  of  themes  in  such  cases  was,  doubtless,  determined  by 
her  example,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  these  lays,  in  phrasing  and 
other  matters,  also,  betray  her  influence  —  so  distinctly,  indeed, 
that  the  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether  the  authors  of  the 
pieces  in  question  drew  at  all  on  Celtic  tradition.  This  skeptic- 
ism has  included  —  and,  justly,  it  would  seem  —  even  the 
beautiful  Franklin's  Tale  of  the  Canterbury  Tales  in  which  a  wo- 
man's honor  is  saved  by  the  generosity  of  her  lover,  after  she  had 
placed  herself  in  his  power  by  promising  him  her  favors,  in  case 
he  performed  a  seemingly  impossible  task,  which,  however,  he 
actually    performs.60     Nevertheless,   Tydorel,  at  least  —   to  say 

69  Melion  is  like  Bisclavret;  Graelent  and  DesirS  are  like 
Lanval.  For  the  literature  of  these  lays,  cp.  Part.  V,  below.  Zimmer, 
Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XIII1,  Iff.,  has  shown  that  the  name  Grae- 
lent is  identical  with  Gradlon  mur,  name  of  a  hero  in  early  Ar- 
morican  saga.  Nevertheless,  to  my  mind,  Foulet,  op.  cit.,  XXIX,  19ff., 
has  made  out  so  strong  a  case  for  his  thesis  that  Graelent  is  essen- 
tially a  combination  of  Marie's  Lanval  and  EUduc  that  I  hesitate  to 
accept  it  as  embodying  an  independent  Celtic  tradition. 

60  Chaucer  describes  it  as  a  "Breton"  lay,  but  cp.  the  article, 
"Le  prologue  du  Franklin's  Tale  et  les  lais  Bretons",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph., 
XXX,  698  ff.  (1906),  by  Foulet,  who  argued  that  the  term  is  here  con- 
ventional. On  the  other  hand,  the  conclusions  of  Pio  Rajna,  "Le 
origini  della  novella  narrata  dal  Frankeleyn  nei  Canterbury  Tales 
del  Chaucer",  Romania,  XXXII,  204ff.  (1903)  —  viz.,  that  this  tale  is 
derived  from  Boccaccio's  Decameron,  X,  5  —  are  unconvincing.  But 
one  need  not  agree  therefore  with  W.  H.  Schofield,  "Chaucer's  Frank- 
lin's Tale",  PMLA,  XVI,  405  ff.  (1901),  that  Chaucer's  source  was  a 
genuine  Breton  folk-tale.  J.  S.  P.  Tatlock  has  latterly,  "The  Scene 
of  the  Franklin's  Tale  Visited",  Publications  of  the  Chaucer  Society 
(1914),  even  tried  to  determine  the  part  of  the  coast  of  Brittany  where 
the  story  is  laid. 


66  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

nothing  of  Guingamor,  which  is  probably  Marie's  composition  — 
appears  to  the  present  writer  to  possess  the  natural  magic  of 
Celtic  fancy. 

There  is  no  convincing  evidence  that  before  Marie  de  France 
narrative  lays  existed  at  all  in  French  literature.  She,  was  doubt- 
less, the  creator  of  the  genre61  and  her  genius  seems  to  have 
dominated  it  during  the  brief  vogue  which  it  enjoyed.62 


C1  This  is  Foulet's  conclusion,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXIX.  56,  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  Le  Cor  by  Robert  Biket  is  really  a  fabliau  (cp. 
already  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XX1,  140),  there  is  no 
valid  ground  for  dating  this  poem  earlier  than  Marie.  Cp.  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  subject  by  Foulet,  op.  cit.,  p.  55,  note  1.  As  the  same 
scholar  observes,  pp.  302  f.,  the  lais  bretons  which  are  first  mentioned 
in  the  fabliau,  Richeut  (usually  dated  1159,  although  it  was  in  reality 
probably  composed  considerably  later.  Cp.  Foulet,  „Le  poeme  de 
Richeut  et  le  roman  de  Renard",  Romania,  XLII,  321  ff.),  and  to  which 
we  have  allusions  in  Chretien,  the  Roman  de  Troie,  Horn,  etc.,  are 
all  lyrical,  not  narrative,  and  it  was  only  by  degrees  that  Marie, 
herself,  came  to  use  the  word  in  the  new  sense.  —  For  views  at 
variance  with  the  one  here  adopted,  cp.  Warnke's  Introduction  and 
the  literature  there  cited  —  also,  H.  DornerV  edition  of  Le  Cor,  cited 
above,  and  Ezio  Levi,  "I  lais  brettoni  e  la  leggenda  di  Tristano,", 
Studj  romanzi  editi  a  cur  a  di  E.  Monad,  XIV,  113  —  246  (Rome, 
1917).  The  only  original  point  which  Levi  tries  to  make  is  that  he 
finds  in  canzoni  of  the  Countess  of  Dia  (who  died  p  orb  ably  in  1193) 
and  Guittone  d'Arezzo  echoes  of  the  words  "Isolt  ma  drue,  Isolt  ma 
vie"  in  the  Tristan  lax  (Thomas's  Tristan).  He  assumes  that  these 
canzoni  were  too  early  to  be  influenced  by  Marie.  The  dates  of 
both,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  are  still  uncertain.  Above  all,  however,  the 
similarity  is  so  general  as  to  have  no  value. 

62  Interesting  early  testimony  to  the  popularity  of  the  lais  is 
supplied  by  Gautier  d' Arras's  Ille  et  Galeron,  11.  928  ff.,  composed 
about  1167,  or  perhaps  somewhat  later.  Cp.  E.  S.  Sheldon,  MPh., 
XVII,  383 ff.  There,  with  reference  to  the  fluctuations  of  love,  it 
is  said. 

Mes  s'autrement  n'alast  r  amors, 

Li  lais  ne  fust  pas  si  en  .cours, 

Nel  prisaissent  tot  li  baron. 

Equally  emphatic  is  the  testimony  on  this  subject  in  Denis  Pyramus's 
La  vie  St.  Edmund  le  rei,  11.  35  ff.  (ed.  F.  L.  Ravenel,  Philadelphia, 
1906)  —  quoted  by  Warnke8,  p.  XXXVI.  Denis's  poem  dates,  it 
would  seem,  from  the  last  decade  of  the  twelfth  century. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  67 

2.  The  Romances. 

We  have  been  dealing  so  far  with  the  lays,  but  the  problem 
of  the  origin  of  the  romances63  —  more  especially  the  question  of 
their  relation  to  Celtic  tradition  —  is  essentially  the  same,  not- 
withstanding the  position  which  has  sometimes  been  taken  that 
it  is  different.  The  fact,  however,  that  most  of  the  lays  do  not 
mention  Arthur  and  his  knights  does  not  alter  the  case;  for  the 
most  distinctive  features  of  these  romances  still  remain  of  the 
same  general  character  as  in  the  case  of  the  lays.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  magic  fountain  at  the  beginning  of  Chretien's  Yvain, 
whose  waters,  if  dropped  on  the  neighboring  stone,  raise  the  storm, 
Whereupon  a  strange  knight  rushes  forth  to  encounter  the  offender, 
or  the  search  of  Lancelot  for  Guinevere  in  the  land  from  which  no 
one  returns  in  the  same  writer's  Lancelot,  or  Perceval's  adven- 
tures at  Arthur's  court  in  the  Conte  del  Graal.  We  move  in  the 
same  world  of  romance  and  marvel  in  each  genre**  —  only,   in 


On  the  development  of  the  meaning  of  the  word,  "romance",  cp., 
especially,  P.  Voelker,  "Die  Bedeutungsentwickelung  des  Wortes  Roman", 
Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  X,  485 ff.  (1887).  It  (OFr.  "romanz")  was  used  first  in 
the  sense  of  "a  book  in  the  vernacular*'  (earliest  example  noted  is  in 
Samson  de  Nanteuil's  Dits  Salamon  —  in  the  forties  of  the  twelfth 
century)  —  but  only  of  translations  from  the  Latin.  Wace,  Roman 
de  Ron,  Part  III,  11.  5331  f.  (H.  Andresen's  edition),  was  the  first 
writer,  as  far  as  we  know,  to  drop  this  restriction.  In  the  second 
half  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  term  is  applied  to  what  we  call  "ro- 
mances", but  is,  also,  employed  of  chronicles,  and  continues  to  be  em- 
ployed of  such  works  down  into  the  fourteenth  century.  Nevertheless, 
the  meaning  "fictitious  narrative"  predominates  from  the  thirteenth 
century  on. 

W.  Meyer-Llibke,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XLIV  \  pp.  131 1., 
(1916)  draws  attention  to  Chretien's  contrasted  use  of  conte  (short 
narrative)  and  romanz  in  Cliges,  11.  22  f.  But  the  poet  does  not 
consistently  maintain  this  distinction.  Cp.  the  titles  of  his  romances: 
Conte  de  la  Charette,  Conte  del  Graal. 

It  has  been  maintained  by  certain  Arthurian  scholars  —  espe- 
cially by  Gr.  Paris,  Histoire  litter  aire  de  la  France,  XXX,  9  (1888), 
E.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz..  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XX1,  151  (1898)  and  with 
unessential  differences,  J.  L.  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot  du 
Lac,  pp.  20,  66  ff.  (1901)  —  that  the  romances  were,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, made  up  of  a  combination   of  lays.     The  theory   is  similar  to 


68  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  case  of  the  romances,  the  Arthurization  is  not  limited  to  a  few 
superficial  details  as  in  the  Arthurized  lays,  but  is  thorough-going. 
Similarly,  the  adaptation  of  these  motifs  to  the  conditions  of 
feudal  society  is  even  more  drastic  in  the  case  of  the  romances. 

Now,  in  view  of  what  has  been  said  about  the  lays  there  can  be 
no  reasonable  doubt  that  Brittany  was  one  source  of  whatever 
is  Celtic  in  the  romances  of  Chretien  and  his  followers.  One  may 
go  further  and  assert  that  the  historical  conditions  render  this 
part  of  the  Celtic  territory  a  far  more  likely  source  of  that  element 
in  the  romances  than  Great  Britain  could  ever  be.  The  emigration 
to  Armorica  of  the  Britons  who  fled  from  Great  Britain  under 
the  pressure  of  Anglo-Saxon  invasion  was  in  progress  during  the 
fifth  and  sixth  centuries  —  so  from  this  early  period  they  were 
in  constant  contact  with  their  neighbors  in  Gaul.  —Especially  close 
were  their  relations  with  Normandy.  Indeed,  from  the  first  part 
of  the  tenth  century  the  Bretons  were  vassals  of  the  Norman  duke 
and  intermarriages  between  the  reigning  houses  of  the  two  states 
testify  to  the  intimacy  of  the  intercourse  which  existed  between 
them.  By  the  tenth  century  the  portion  of  Brittany  which  was 
closest  to  Normandy  was  thoroughly  assimilated  to  Norman-French 
civilization  and  there  was  a  considerable  zone  in  which,  to  a  large 
extent,  the  population  was  bilingual.    Under  these  conditions,  of 


that  which  Paris  maintained  —  e.  g.,  in  his  Histoire  Poetique  de 
Charlemagne2,  pp.  llf.,  69 ff .  (Paris,  1905)  —  with  regard  to  the 
origin  of  the  chansons  de  geste.  These,  too,  he  thought,  sprang  from 
the  combination  of  shorter  pieces  (cantilenae)  —  often,  to  be  sure, 
completely  transformed.  We  have  here,  of  course,  the  familiar  theory 
of  epic  origins  which  was  first  applied  to  the  Homeric  poems  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  (the  so-called  Wolfian  theory) 
and  afterwards  to  the  mediaeval  epics.  This  theory,  as  applied  to  the 
latter,  however,  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  Greek  —  has  latterly  become 
so  generally  discredited  that  there  is  no  need  of  our  discussing  here 
its  application  to  the  romances.  Cp.  Bedier's  Les  LSgendes  Epiques, 
with  reference  to  the  chansons  de  geste.  For  supposed  influence 
of  the  Greek  romances  on  the  Arthurian  romances  —  especially,  in 
structural  matters  —  through  the  intermediation  of  the  Crusaders, 
cp.  W.  J.  Courthope,  "The  Connexion  between  Ancient  and  Modern 
Romance",  Proceedings  of  the  British  Academy  for  1911 — 19 12, 
pp.  245ff.     The  theory,  however,  has  no  sound  basis. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  69 

course,  it  was  easy  for  the  legends  of  the  Bretons  to  penetrate 
into  Normandy  and  the  rest  of  France.65 

How  was  it,  on  the  other  hand,  with  the  insular  Celts  —  the 
inhabitants  of  Wales  and  Cornwall  and  Scotland?  We  have  seen 
already  that  the  reasons  advanced  by  Gaston  Paris  for  supposing 
that  even  before  the  Norman  Conquest  Celtic  tales  were  in  cir- 
culation among  the  Anglo-Saxons  are  not  sound.  Moreover,  in 
extant  Anglo-Saxon  literature  there  is  no  trace  of  such  stories. 
We  may  say,  in  general,  that  the  long  and  bitter  hostility  which 
prevailed  between  the  two  peoples  was  not  favorable  to  the  exchange 
of  the  materials  of  literature.  In  the  main,  the  same  thing  is  true 
of  the  relations  that  existed  between  the  new  Continental  invaders 
and  the  old  Celtic  population  of  Great  Britain  in  the  decades  that 
immediately  followed  the  Norman  Conquest.  The  Normans  had 
utterly  humiliated  the  hated  Saxons,  but  the  feeling  of  the  Celts 
towards  the  conquerors  was  at  first  not  so  different  from  that  which 
they  had  entertained  towards  their  old  enemies  as  might  have 
been  expected,  for  they  found  themselves  engaged  almost  at  once 
in  a  desperate  struggle  with  the  same  foe.  Nevertheless,  during 
the  reign  of  Henry  I,  South  Wales  was  thoroughly  subdued  to 
Norman  rule,  and  early  in  the  twelfth  century  the  conditions  for 
peaceful  intercourse  between  victors  and  vanquished  were  establish- 
ed.66 Moreover,  within  such  Celtic  areas,  there  was  one  es- 
pecial circumstance  that  doubtless  facilitated  the  transmission  of 
insular  Celtic  materials  to  the  French-speaking  invaders  —  na- 
mely, the  part  played  by  the  Bretons  in  the  conquest  of  England.67 
Except  the  Normans,  themselves,  no  other  people  had  so  large 
a  share  in  this  enterprise  or  in  the  spoils  that  resulted  from  it. 
There  is  abundant  documentary  evidence  of  the  gifts  of  land  which 

65  In  this  connection  it  is  significant  that  the  names  of  the  well- 
known  Arthurian  characters  occur  much  oftener  in  the  mediaeval  do- 
cuments of  Brittany  than  of  Wales.  On  this  subject,  cp.  Franz  Putz's 
important  article,  "Zur  Geschichte  der  Entwicklung  der  Artursage", 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XIV1,  161  if.  (1892). 

60  Cp.  J.  E.  Lloyd's  History  of  Wales  from  the  Earliest  Times 
to  the  Edwardian  Conquest,  II,  433  ff.  (London,  1911). 

67  So  Zimmer,  Gott.  G.  A.  for  Oct.  1,  1890,  pp.  78911  The  sugge- 
stion has  found  general  acceptance. 


70  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

they  received  in  different  parts  of  the  conquered  country,  including 
Celtic  Cornwall.  Especially  large  were  the  holdings  of  the  Breton 
prince,  Alan  Fergant,68  in  Yorkshire.  But  wherever  there  were 
large  Norman  garrisons,  as  in  South  Wales,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  presence  of  bilingual  Bretons  among  them.  Now,  as 
we  know  from  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  about  the  year  1200,  say, 
the  language  of  the  Bretons  was  still  so  near  to  that  of  their 
Welsh  and  Cornish  kinsmen  that  there  was  no  difficulty  in  members 
of  these  different  branches  of  the  Celtic  race  understanding  each 
other.  So  here  was  a  ready  channel  for  the  diffusion  of  Welsh 
stories  among  the  Normans  and  thence  among  the  French.  Since 
we  have  no  direct  testimony  on  the  subject,  the  matter  must  re- 
main more  or  less  in  the  realm  of  conjecture,  but  the  romances,  them- 
selves, furnish,  to  some  degree,  reasons  for  supposing  that  such  a 
diffusion  did  take  place,  and  it  is  accordingly  highly  probable 
that  the  Bretons  did  play  some  such  role  as  we  have  indicated. 
The  problem  of  the  relations  of  the  romances  to  Celtic  tra- 
dition —  more  particularly  to  Celtic  insular  tradition  —  would 
be  simple,  indeed,  if  we  accepted,  with  some  critics,  the  theory 
that  the  three  Welsh  tales,  Oiven  and  Lunet  (or  The  Lady  of  the 
Fountain),  Peredur  ab  Evrawc,  and  Geraint  and  Enid  —  all  in- 
cluded in  the  Mabinogion  —  which  deal  with  the  same  themes  as 
Chretien's  Yvain,  Perceval  and  Erec,  respectively,  were  not  mere 
adaptations  of  the  latter,  but  went  back  independently  to  common 
Welsh  sources.  The  differences,  however,  in  style  and  construc- 
tion between  the  three  Welsh  tales  just  named  and  the  unquestion- 
ably native  tales  in  the  Mabinogion,  such  as  Kulhwch  and  Olwen 
or  Branwen,  Daughter  of  Elyr,  are  too  plain  to  deny.  Instead 
of  the  incoherence  and  ineffectual  rambling  of  the  latter,  we  have 
here  organization  and  order.  Moreover,  as  far  as  he  appears,  Arthur 
in  the  three  tales  is  the  roi  faineant  of  the  French  romances,  not 
the  active  hero  of  Welsh  saga.  These  various  differences,  are, 
indeed,  so  manifest  that  it  was  obviously  impossible  to  accept  the 
above-mentioned  hypothesis  in  an  unqualified  form.   Consequently, 

Zimmer,  however,  was  mistaken  in  representing  this  prince 
as  taking  part  in  the  Norman  Conquest  of  England.  Cp.  J.  Loth, 
Annates  de  Bretagne,  XI,  479  (1895  —  6). 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  71 

nearly  all  scholars  who  have  studied  the  problem  have  agreed  that 
the  three  tales  were  influenced  by  French  originals,  whether  such 
originals  were  the  poems  of  Chretien  still  extant,  or  those  of  some 
other  writer,  now  lost.69  There  seems  really,  however,  no  need 
of  calling  into  existence  imaginary  French  sources:  Chretien  will 
suffice.  For,  although  in  the  Welsh  tales  the  narrative  is  more 
condensed  than  in  the  corresponding  romances  of  Chretien,  the 
two  concur  in  their  incidents  throughout,  and,  save  for  one  exception 
(in  The  Lady  of  the  Fountain),  in  the  order  of  these  incidents. 
Such  divergences  as  we  observe  in  comparing  the  two  sets  of  narra- 
tives are,  for  the  most  part,  not  difficult  to  explain.  The  differ- 
ences between  Welsh  and  feudal  French  society  at  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century  were  enormous  —  in  respect  to  custom,  culture, 
intellectual  outlook  —  everything,  indeed  —  and  a  Welsh  adap- 
tation of  a  French  poem  would,  of  course,  inevitably,  reflect  these 
differences.  In  these  three  Welsh  ,tales  pf  the  Mabinogion,  then, 
we  have,  no  doubt,  the  three  above-mentioned  poems  of  Chretien 
adapted,  in  part,  to  the  conditions  of  contemporary  Welsh  society 
and  transmuted  by  that  riotous  fancy  of  the  Celt  which  has  never 
had  its  equal  —  by  some  professional  story-teller,  we  may  say, 
then,  of  twelfth  or  thirteenth  century  Wales,  the  representative 
of  a  rude  civilisation,  to  whose  mind  the  marvellous  was  as  familiar 
as  the  real.  After  all,  however,  it  is  questionable  whether  the 
transmutation  in  these  cases  is  so  great  as  that  which  was  suffered 
by  the  Tale  of  Gamelyn,  as  it  passed  through  the  hands  of  Lodge 
and  Shakespeare,  becoming,  in  succession,  the  Euphuistic  novel, 
Rosalynd,  and  the  loveliest  of  pastoral  dramas,  As  You  Like  It, 
or  —  to  select  an  Arthurian  example,  —  as  that  which  befell' 
Malory's  account  of  Arthur's  last  phase  in  Tennyson's  Guine- 
vere.10 


69 


For  recent  writers  who  adopt  the  latter  view,  cp.  Part  IV, 
below. 

70  As  far  as  change  of  incident  goes,  there  is,  obviously,  no 
comparison  —  the  modern  writers  are  so  much  more  drastic.  But  the 
contrast  in  respect  to  sentiment  is,  in  reality,  equally  striking. 

For  an  admirable  statement  of  the  case  for  Chretien  as  the  source 
of  the  three  Welsh  tales,  cp.  P.  A.  Becker,  Literaturblatt  fur  ger- 
manische    und    romanische   Philologie,    XXXIV,  19ff.  (Jan.,  1913). 


72  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

We  have  reviewed  already  above  the  scanty  testimony  of  the 
chroniclers  with  respect  to  the  existence  of  Arthurian  traditions 
in  Great  Britain,  and  we  have  seen,  moreover,  that  the  sources 
of  the  extant  lays  were  all  continental.  The  question  of  these 
insular  traditions  will  again  arise  when,  in  subsequent  chapters, 
we  endeavor  to  trace  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  legends 
concerning  Merlin,  Lancelot,  Tristan,  and  the  Holy  Grail.  With 
regard  to  these  legends,  we  shall  see  that  only  for  those  that 
relate  to  Merlin  and  Tristan  can  it  be  claimed  with  certitude  that 
they  originated  in  Great  Britain  and  that,  even  in  the  case  of  the 
former,  the  connection  with  Celtic  popular  tradition  is  of  the  slight- 
est kind.  Is  there,  now,  any  other  evidence  which  would  suggest 
that  widespread  traditions  concerning  Arthur  and  his  companions 
were  in  circulation  in  Great  Britain,  or,  indeed,  in  the  British 
Isles  —  for  we  shall  include  Ireland  in  our  examination  —  tra- 
ditions which  the  authors  of  the  Arthurian  romances  might  draw 
upon  directly  or  which,  if  not  originally  connected  with  the  cha- 
racters in  question,  have  been  actually  applied  to  them  by  the 
romancers?  The  chief  evidence  that  bears  upon  our  inquiry  would 
appear  to  be  as  follows: 

1.  Arthurian  localizations. 

Many  localities  in  Great  Britain  bear  Arthurian  names  — 
especially  in  those  parts  of  the  island  where  the  Celtic  element 
is  strongest  —  that  is  to  say,  in  Wales,  Cornwall,  and  Somerset, 
and  also  in  Scotland  and  Northern  England.71  It  is  to  this  cir- 
cumstance that  Tennyson  refers  in  the  well-known  lines  in  the 
Epilogue  to  his  Idylls  of  the  King,  when  he  speaks  of 


That  Peredur  is  derived  from  Chretien's  Perceval  and  its  continuations 
is  now  very  generally  conceded.  Cp.  Part.  II,  Peredur  section,  below. 
With  regard  to  the  two  remaining  tales,  cp.  Part  IV,  where  a  full 
history  of  the  Mabinogion  controversy  is  given  and  the  evidence  in  the 
case  examined. 

Full  collections  on  the  subject  are  given  in  J.  S.  Stuart- 
Glennie's  Arthurian  Localities  —  published  as  an  introduction  to 
Part  III  (1869)  of  the.E.  E.  T.  S.  edition  of  the  Middle  English  prose 
Merlin  (Original  Series,  no.  36).  For  Cornwall  see,  besides,  W.  H. 
Dickinson  s  King  Arthur  in  Cornwall  (London,  1900).  Unfortunately, 
both  writers  are  wholly  uncritical. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  73 

"that  gray  king"  whose  name,  a  ghost, 
Streams  like  a  cloud,  man-shaped,  from  mountain  peak, 
And  cleaves  to  cairn  and  cromlech  still." 

Thus,  "Arthur's  Round  Table"  is  a  term  applied  to  enclo- 
sures of  one  sort  or  another  in  various  parts  of  Great  Britain,  — 
for  instance,  to  what  is  really  the  remains  of  a  Roman  amphi- 
theatre at  Caerleon-on-Usk  in  Wales,  —  to  a  space  surrounded 
by  trenches  on  a  hill  at  Cadbury  in  Somersetshire,  and  so  on. 
This  same  Cadbury  is  identified  locally  with  the  Camelot  of  the 
French  romances,  the  capital  of  Arthur's  kingdom.  In  Cornwall, 
besides  Tintagel,  where  the  hero  was  born,  and  Camelford,  where 
he  fought  his  last  battle  with  Mordred,  we  have  King  Arthur's 
Bed  —  a  group  of  rocky  hills  —  King  Arthur's  Cups  and  Saucers, 
rock  basins  in  the  slate  of  a  promontory  along  the  coast.  But  the 
localizations  are  especially  numerous  in  Southern  Scotland.72 
Every  visitor  to  Edinburgh  will  remember  the  hill  called  Arthur's 
Seat  which  rises  to  the  south  of  the  city,  but  the  same  name  is 
met  with  elsewhere  in  the  south  of  Scotland.  Further  north  at 
Meigle  is  Guinevere's  grave  —  the  queen,  according  to  local  tra- 
dition, having  been  tied  to  wild  horses  and  torn  to  pieces  as  a 
punishment  for  marital  infidelity.  These  are  only  a  few  well- 
known  examples  which  might  be  increased  almost  indefinitely. 

It  is  frequently  taken  for  granted  that  this  widespread  Ar- 
thurian nomenclature  furnishes  indisputable  proof  of  an  equally 
widespread  diffusion  of  early  Arthurian  traditions  in  Great  Bri- 
tain, those  traditions  being  embodied,  as  it  is  conjectured,  in  fan- 
tastic tales  of  the  same  general  character  as  the  Welsh  Kulhwch 
and  Olwen.  But  the  validity  of  this  assumption  depends  entirely 
on  the  antiquity  of  the  localizations,  and,  in  default  of  a  critical 
work  on  the  subject,  no  one  can  affirm  that  such  localizations 

13  On  the  basis  of  these  frequent  localizations,  Skene,  Four 
Ancient  Books  of  Wales,  I,  60,  and  Stuart-Glennie,  p.  LXI,  have 
placed  the  scene  of  Arthur's  last  battle  in  Scotland  at  Camelon,  on 
the  south  bank  of  the  river,  Carron,  where  there  are  remains  of  an 
old  Roman  town.  W.  H.  Dickinson,  pp.  82  f.,  also  argues  at  length  in 
favor  of  this  view.  All  the  conditions  of  sixth  century  Britain,  however, 
point  to  the  South  as  the  scene  of  this  last  battle,  if,  indeed,  it  is 
not  purely  legendary. 


74  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

were  not  really  suggested,  in  the  majority  of  instances,  by  the 
chronicles  and  romances.  They  would  occur  particularly  in  the 
regions  named  above  —  partly,  because  it  was  known  that  the 
severest  conflict  between  the  Celts  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders 
did  take  place  in  just  those  regions,  and,  partly,  because  people 
of  Celtic  descent  would  naturally  feel  the  greatest  interest  in  con- 
necting with  objects  in  their  own  territory  the  names  of  these 
mythical  characters  of  their  race  whom  the  chroniclers  and  ro- 
mancers had  made  world-famous.  It  is  significant  that  the  parts 
of  Great  Britain  where  the  localizations  in  question  are  most  nume- 
rous of  all  —  viz.,  Northern  England  and  Southern  Scotland  — 
were  also  just  those  parts  where  Arthurian  romance  as  a  literary 
genre  took  deepest  root.  It  was  here  (in  Northern  England),  for 
example,  that  the  finest  of  the  English  romances,  Sir  Gaivain  and 
the  Green  Knight  and  the  alliterative  Morte  Arthure,  were  written, 
and  the  last  of  the  species  that  was  composed  on  British  soil  was 
a  Scottish  romance,  Lancelot  of  the  Laik.  It  will  be  observed, 
then,  that  the  evidence  of  these  place-names  is  inconclusive.73 

2.  Traditions  concerning  Arthur's  death  (journey  to  Avalon) 
and  expected  return. 

In  spite  of  their  enthusiastic  patriotism,  native  Welsh  autho- 
rities are  agreed  that  Arthur  was  a  late-comer  in  the  traditions 
of  Wales.74   Moreover,  one  of  the  most  eminent  of  Celtic  scholars 


73  Zimuier,  however,  maintains,  Gott.  G.  A.  for  June  10,  1$90, 
pp.  525  f.,  that  the  localization  of  Arthur's  capital  at  Carlisle  (Carduel), 
which  occurs  often  in  the  French  romances,  is  a  genuine  tradition 
inherited  from  an  early  period. 

74  The  testimony  of  the  native  Welsh  authorities  on  this  sub- 
ject is  virtually  unanimous.  Cp.,  for  instance,  Thomas  Stephens,  The 
Literature  of  the  Kyrnry,  pp.  400  ff.  (second  ed.,  London,  1876).  He 
regards  (p.  406)  Arthur  as  an  Armorican  creation.  E.  Anwyl,  Zs. 
f  celt  Ph.,  I,  293  (1897).  declares  that  "in  the  legends  of  Gwynedd 

[Northwest  Wales]  and  Dyfed  |  Southwest  Wales]  he  [Arthur]  had  no 
place  whatever",  and  W.  J.  Gruffydd  in  his  paper  "The  Mabinogion", 
Transactions  of  the  Honorable  Society  of  Cymmrodorion,  Session 
of  1912—1913  (London,  1914),  says  (p.  31)  that  to  Cornwall  and 
Devon  "must  be  given  the  credit  of  cradling  the  superb  mythology  of 
Arthur",  and  (pp.  32  f.)  that  "whether  he  appears  in  the  well-ordered 
tales  of  Chretien  de  Troyes  or  in  the  chronicles   of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  75 

on  the  Continent,  the  late  Professor  Zimmer,  even  went  so  far  as  to 
deny  that  there  was  any  popular  tradition  at  all  among  the  Welsh 
concerning  Arthur's  voyage  to  Avalon  (the  Celtic  Elysium)  and 
expected  return.75  According  to  the  German  scholar,  this  was 
a  purely  Armorican  (Breton)  conception  and  became  known  to 
the  Welsh  only  through  the  Bretons  —  after  the  appearance  of 
Geoffrey's  Historia  —  whose  passionate  attachment  to  the  idea 
of  the  espoir  breton  (hope  of  the  Britons),  as  it  was  called,  is 

mouth  and  in  others  or  in  Malory,  or,  above  all,  in  Welsh  literature 
he  is  clearly  no  dweller  in  Wales  or  in  the  Gogledd"  [i.  e.,  the  old 
Celtic  territory  in  Northwest  England  and  Southern  Scotland].  Gruffydd 
avers  (p.  32)  that  even  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  Arthur  is  "no  neces- 
sary part  of  the  romance",  and  with  reference  to  the  same  tale, 
J.  Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIV,  379  f.  (1913),  observes  that,  if  Arthur 
plays  a  preponderant  part  in  a  Welsh  story,  this  is  a  sign  of  late  date. 

Gruffydd,  op.  cit.,  p.  35,  asserts  that  Arthur's  tables,  mounds,  etc., 
in  Wales  are  all  of  late  origin.  The  little  that  is  found  concerning 
Arthur  in  Welsh  literature,  he  thinks,  came  in  through  Powis.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  victory  at  Deorham  (in  577)  cut  off  henceforth  the  Celts 
of  Wales  from  those  in  Devon  and  Cornwall.  Gruffydd  suggests  that 
this  event  prevented  the  Welsh  from  absorbing  the  Arthurian  traditions 
which  their  Southern  brethren  had  created. 

It  seems  significant  that  South  Wales  —  the  part  of  Wales 
nearest  Cornwall  —  should,  among  all  divisions  of  Wales,  best  pre- 
serve the  tradition  of  Arthur  and  his  last  battle  (Camlan).  Cp.  F.  Lot's 
note,  "La  bataille  de  Camlan",  Romania,  XXX,  16ff.  (1901).  As 
Lot  says,  the  people  of  Cornwall  localized  Camelford  (twelve  miles 
east  of  Bodmin)  as  the  scene  of  the  battle  and  the  river,  Camel,  as 
the  Cambula.  In  the  Welsh  Mabinogion  and  Triads  we  find  also 
the  Cornish  localization  of  Arthur's  residence  at  Kelliwic,  which  Lot, 
ibid.,  pp.  13  f.,  identifies  with  Bodmin  (capital  of  Cornwall). 

76  In  his  article,  "Bretonische  Elemente  in  der  Arthursage  des 
Gottfried  von  Monmouth",  Zs.  f.  frz.  Sj)r.  u.  LitL,  XII1,  231  ff.  (1891) 
—  especially,  pp.  238ff.  In  this  same  article  Zimmer  tried  to  draw 
a  distinction  between  a  historical  Arthurian  tradition  in  Great  Britain 
(cp.  Nennius)  and  a  romantic  tradition  developed  by  the  inhabitants 
of  Brittany  in  the  course  of  the  generations  which  followed  their 
separation  from  the  actual  scenes  of  his  struggle  and  triumphs.  But 
the  distinction  is  a  fanciful  one  and  has  found  no  favor  with  scholars. 
The  popular  imagination  could  have  been  just  as  active  in  full  sight 
of  Badon  Hill  or  on  the  field  of  Arthur's  last  battle  as  in  far-away 
Brittany. 


76  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

well  attested  by  contemporaries,  such  as  Wace7e  and  Alanus  de 
Insulis. 77  The  latter,  for  example,  in  his  commentary  on  Geof- 
frey's Prophecies  of  Merlin  (Book  VII,  of  the  Historia)  avers 
that  any  one  who  in  Brittany  disputed  the  superstition  concer- 
ning Arthur's  return  would  be  cursed  and  stoned.  Geoffrey,  him- 
self, indeed,  has  only  a  brief  phrase  concerning  the  matter:  Mine 
ad  sananda  vulnera  sua  in  insulam  Avallonis  advectus  (XI,  2). 
But,  interest  in  the  subject  having  been  awakened  by  this  state- 
ment, according  to  Zimmer's  view,  the  Welsh  later  on  drew  a  fuller 
account  from  the  Bretons,  by  way,  doubtless,  of  the  French  chro- 
niclers and  romancers. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  evidence  of  Welsh  belief  in  this 
most  famous  of  the  conceptions  that  relate  to  Arthur  is  surprising- 
ly meagre.  Nennius,  for  instance,  does  not  mention  it,  nor  is 
it  mentioned  in  the  Mabinogion.  In  fact,  only  two  texts  have 
been  cited  that  seem  to  furnish  any  evidence  as  to  the  currency 
of  these  conceptions  in  Wales:  1.  a  description  of  Wales  in  French 
octosyllabic  verse  which  dates  from  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury and  which  is  attached  to  Gaimar's  chronicle  in  certain  MSS. 
of  that  work.  Describing  the  Norman  invasion  of  Wales  after  the 
Conquest  of  England,  the  writer  says  that  the  Welsh  recovered 
much  of  the  ground  which  the  invaders  had  taken  from  them  and 
that  they  averred  that  they  would  recover  it  all  in  time  through 
Arthur.  2.  A  Welsh  poem  of  about  the  same  date  in  the  Black 
Book  of  Caermarthen.  Here  it  is  said  in  an  enumeration  of  tombs: 
A  tomb  for  March,  a  tomb  for  Gwythyr, 
A  tomb  for  Gwgan  of  the  red  sword. 
A  tomb  for  Arthur  would  be  foolish. 
That  is  to  say,  of  course,  because  he  was  still  alive.79 

76  Brut,  11.  13683ff.,  quoted  in  part,  p.  57,  above.  Wace, 
with  Geoffrey,  VII,  3,  in  mind,  says  that,  according  to  Merlin,  Arthur's 
end  would  be  doubtful. 

77  For  the  words  of  Alanus  in  his  Prophetia  Anglic  ana  cp. 
San  Marte,  Sagen  von  Merlin,  p.  55  (Halle,  1853),  and  Zimmer,  op. 
cit.,  p.  240.  They  were  written  during  the  reign  (1154 — 1189)  of 
Henry  II. 

78  By  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXVHI,  16  f.  (1899). 

'"  W.  J.  Gruffydd,  who  maintains,  as  we  have  seen  above  (p.  74 
note),  that  Arthur  was  an  alien  to  genuine  Welsh  tradition,  suggests, 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  77 

Does  not  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  however,  the  famous  Welsh 
ecclesiastic  of  the  late  twelfth  and  early  thirteenth  centuries,  tes- 
tify to  a  Welsh  tradition  of  Arthur's  expected  return  in  the  well- 
known  passage  of  his  Speculum  Ecclesiae  (II,  9)80    which  de- 

p.  35  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Honorable  Society  of  the  Oymm- 
rodorion,  Session,  1912 — 1913  (London,  1914),  that  the  real  meaning' 
of  the  last  line  is:  "His  exploits  were  not  performed  in  Welsh  terri- 
tory; his  grave  was  unknown,  simply  because  he  was  not  buried  in 
Wales."  But  even  if  Gruff ydd's  general  theory  about  Arthur  and 
Wales  is  correct,  Lot's  interpretation  of  the  line  strikes  me  as  pre- 
ferable. 

Arthur's  last  battle  (Camlann)  is  mentioned  often  in  Welsh  texts. 
See  Index  to  Loth's  Mabinogion  under  Camlann.  The  text  above, 
however,  is  the  only  one  in  the  Welsh  language  that  even  hints  at 
the  conception  of  Arthur's  translation  to  Avalon,  and  there  are  none 
in  Irish  —  for  Irish  literature  is  virtually  entirely  ignorant  of  Arthur. 
In  my  edition  of  the  Mort  Artu,  pp.  300 f.,  I  have  summarized  and 
discussed  the  suggestions  that  have  been  made  as  to  Irish  parallels 
to  the  story  of  Arthur:  Death  of  Cuchullin  (cp.  Eleanor  Hull,  The 
Cuchullin  Saga,  pp.  XXVHIff.,  London,  1898),  the  legend  of  Mongan 
(cp.  A.  Nutt,  The  Voyage  of  Bran,  II,  23,  London,  1897),  and  the 
legend  of  Finn  (cp.  A.  Nutt,  Revue  Celtique,  XII,  190).  There  is  no 
real  similarity,  however,  in  any  of  the  cases  —  least  of  all,  in  regard 
to  the  end  of  the  respective  heroes.  J.  F.  Campbell,  Popular  Tales 
of  the  West  Highlands,  IV,  240ff.  (London,  1893)  was  better  in- 
spired, when  he  cited  as  a  parallel  the  Gaelic  legend  of  Diarmaid 
and  Grainne,  a  cognate,  as  we  shall  see  below,  of  the  Tristan-Iseult 
story.  The  parallel  is  closer,  if  we  take  (with  Geoffrey)  Mordred 
as  the  adulterer,  instead  of  Lancelot,  as  Campbell  does.  Here,  as  in 
the  stories  of  Tristan  and  Iseult  and  Arthur  and  Guinevere,  we  have 
the  faithless  wife  who  commits  adultery  with  her  husband's  nephew. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  legend  in  question  does  not  end  with  an  Other- 
world  voyage.  Altogether,  there  is  probably  no  historical  connection 
between  the  stories. 

The  idea  that  only  three  men  survived  Arthur's  last  battle  is 
known  to  Welsh  literature.  Cp.  the  triad  in  Loth's  Mabinogion*,  II, 
290,  and  Kulhwch  and  Olwen,  op.  cit.,  I,  270.  For  a  discussion 
of  these  passages  see  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  295 f.  and  on  Arthurs 
mythical  end,  in  general,  cp.  pp.  298  ff:  Cp.,  too,  Miss  Paton,  op.  cit., 
pp.  25  ff. 

80  Giraldus,  loc.  cit.,  erroneously  states  that  it  was  in  Henry 
ITs  reign,  but  Henry  died  in  1189.  It  occurred  really  in  the  reign 
of  Richard  I.     Cp.  J.  S.  Brewer's  edition    of  Giraldus's  works   for  the 


78  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

scribes  the  pretended  exhumation  of  Arthur  and  Guinevere  at  Glas- 
tonbury in  1191?  To  increase  the  importance  of  their  monastery, 
which,  according  to  their  impudent  assertions,  was  founded  by 
King  Arthur,  the  monks  concocted  this  solemn  farce  of  the  ex- 
humation, an  account  of  which  Giraldus  received  from  an  eye- 
witness. The  bodies  were  found  buried  sixteen  feet  deep  in  the 
ground  and  when  a  monk  seized  a  yellow  lock  of  Guinevere's 
hair,  it  is  said  to  have  vanished  away.  The  Welsh  writer  con- 
trasts with  the  evidence  of  Arthur's  real  death  which  this  affair 
supplied  the  absurd  tales  which  are  propagated  by  fabulosi  Bri- 
tones  et  eorum  cantatores;  for  the  latter  were  accustomed  to  relate, 
he  says,  how  a  certain  fantastic  goddess,  Morganis  —  Dea  quaedam 
phantastica — took  Arthur  to  Avalon  to  be  healed  of  his  wounds  and 
how,  when  they  are  cured,  he  will  return  to  reign  over  the  Britons. 
Giraldus  comments  still  further  on  the  likeness  of  this  belief  to 
that  of  the  Jews  in  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 

Everything  here  turns  on  the  disputed  meaning  of  Britones. 
Is  Giraldus  referring  to  Armoricans  or  Welshmen?  Despite  con- 
tentions to  the  contrary,81  Welsh  writers  in  the  Middle  Ages  do 
occasionally,  though  not  often,  use  this  term  of  contemporary 
Welshmen,  as  well  as  of  the  whole  race  of  Britons  combined  — 
both  continental  and  insular.82  Consequently,  the  passage  is  open 
to  varying  constructions  and  throws  no  decisive  light  on  the  sub- 


Rolls  Series,  IV,  48  ff .  (London,  1873).  A  few  sentences  which  are 
unintelligible  in  the  Latin  text,  owing  to  mutilation  of  the  unique  MS. 
of  the  Speculum,  have  been  preserved  in  the  Welsh  version  of  Giral- 
dus's  account  edited  by  Timothy  Lewis  and  J.  D.  Bruce,  "The  pre- 
tended exhumation  of  Arthur  and  Guinevere,"  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII, 
432  ff.  (1912).  The  inscription  on  the  cross  over  the  tomb  in  Giral- 
dus, p.  50,  speaks  of  Guinevere  as  Arthur's  second  wife.  In  a  Welsh 
triad,  according  to  Rhys,  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  35  ff.,  he  is  said  to 
have  had  three  wives,  all  named  Gwenhwyvar  (Guinevere).  Nowhere 
else  in  Arthurian  literature,  however,  is  he  given  more  than  one  wife 
and,  besides,  as  we  have  seen  above,  p.  44,  note  14,  Loth  does  not 
translate  the  Welsh  in  the  same  manner  as  Rhys.  According  to  his 
translation,  the  triad  does  not  speak  of  Arthur's  three  wives,  but  of 
the  three  principal  ladies  at  his  court. 

81  Zimmer,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XII  \  241ff.  (1890). 

S3  Op.  Lot's  articles  cited  p.  60,  note,  44,  above. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  79 

ject  of  our  inquiry.  The  form  of  Morgan's  name  in  G-iraldus, 
Morganis  (instead  of  Morgana)  seems  determined,  it  is  true,  by 
the  French  nominative  form,  Mor gains,83  but  even  this  detail 
cannot  be  taken  as  settling  the  whole  question;  for,  in  forming 
the  Latin  name,  Giraldus  might  well  have  been  influenced  by  the 
most  popular  works  in  which  the  character  had  appeared  (the 
French  romances)  even  though  he  knew,  also,  from  Welsh  sources 
of  Arthur's  exitus  dubius.8* 

Morgan85   and  Avalon86   being,   of  course,   inseparable  from 

83  Cp.  Brugger,  op.  tit.,  XX  \  100  (1898).  Ibid.,  pp.  97  ff., 
lie  presents  the  strongest  argument  that  has  been  offered  for  the  in- 
terpretation of  Britones  as  Armoricans  in  this  passage. 

84  "Doubtful  exit"   —   i.  e.  from  life. 

86  For  ttye  name  which,  according  to  J.  Rhys,  Arthurian  Legends, 
348 1.,  must  have  been  Morgen  (as  actually  in  Geoffrey's  Vita  Mer- 
lini)  in  mediaeval  Welsh,  cp.  L.  A.  Paton,  Studies  in  the  Fairy 
Mythology  of  Arthurian  Romance,  pp.  9  ff . :  Radcliffe  College  Mono- 
graphs, no.  13  (Boston,  1903),  and  J.  D.  Bruce,  MLN,  XXVI,  67' 
note  16,  where  the  opinions  of  the  leading  Celticists  on  the  subject 
are  assembled  —  in  the  latter,  also,  similar  observations  on  the  common 
Welsh  man's  name,  Morgan.  Miss  Paton,  loc.  tit.,  proposed  to  iden- 
tify Morgan  with  Morrigan,  an  Irish  battle-goddess,  but  this  unlikely 
suggestion  has  won  no  adherents.  —  Rhys,  op.  tit.,  p.  22,  interprets 
Welsh  Morgen  as  etymologically  identical  with  Muirgen,  meaning 
"sea-born",   which  actually  occurs  as  a  woman's  name  in  Irish. 

Morgan  (Morgen)  is  first  mentioned  in  Geoffrey's  Vita  Merlini, 
11.  918  ff.  (composed  probably  in  1149)  —  and  here  as  the  person 
who  is  to  heal  Arthur  in  the  Isle  of  Apples  (Celtic  Elysium).  She 
is  next  mentioned  in  the  Roman  de  Troie,  1.  8024  (Constans'  edition, 
I,  434),  —  composed  about  1160  —  as  a  fairy  who  hated  Hector, 
because  he  did  not  return  her  love.  The  name  here,  it  is  true,  is 
in#  most  MSS.  disguised  by  mutilation,  as  we  have  seen  above,  p.  33, 
note  73,  that  it  was  also  in  Layamon.  Chretien,  in  his  Erec,  1. 1957,  com- 
posed about  1165),  mentions  her  as  the  mistress  of  Guigomar,  lord 
of  Avalon,  and,  11.  4216ff.,  as  Arthur's  sister  and  as  highly  skilled 
in  healing.  The  two  passages  combined  betray  a  knowledge  of  the 
part  which  she  played  in  the  story  of  Arthur's  end.  The  poet,  him- 
self, however,  doubtless,  invented  the  idea  that  she  was  Arthur's 
sister,  which  was  afterwards  adopted,  among  others,  by  Robert  de 
Boron  in  his  Merlin.  To  be  sure,  it  must  be  confessed  that  as  early 
as  about  1170,  in  the  Draco  Normannicus  (a  Latin  metrical  para- 
phrase of  Geoffrey's  Historia),    the  author  (Etienne,    a  monk   of  Bee, 


80  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  myth  of  Arthur's  end,  the  problem  of  their  origin  is  simply 
a  part  of  the  general  problem  of  the  origin  of  that  myth. 


it  seems),  also,  makes  Morgan  (Morgana)  Arthur's  sister.  Cp.  Fletcher's 
Arthurian  Material,  pp.  145  f.  This  is  more  likely,  however,  to  be 
due  to  Chretien's  influence,  direct  or  indirect,  than  to  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  bearing  of  the  word,  sorores  (Morgan  and  her  fairy 
companions),  in  the   Vita  Merlini,  1.  919,  as  Fletcher  surmises. 

Miss  Paton's  hypothesis,  pp.  29,  33,  that  the  conception  of  Ar- 
thur's translation  to  Avalon  (in  company  with  Morgan)  is  merely  a 
fairy-mistress  story  transformed  has  no  support  whatever  in  the  in- 
numerable Arthurian  texts.     Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artuf  p.  300. 

Miss  Paton,  op.  cit.,  has  followed  Morgan  through  the  romances 
and  her  collection  of  material  on  this  character  and  on  the  fairy 
mythology  of  the  Arthurian  romances  in  general  is  invaluable,  but  her 
work  suffers  from  the  fundamental  error  of  assuming  virtually  always 
that  the  romancers  in  what  they  say  concerning  the  great  fairy  are 
drawing  on  a  body  of  popular  tradition  concerning  her.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  their  draughts  on  tradition  are  infinitesimal  —  they  drew 
on  their  imaginations,  instead. 

In  the  course  (p.  326)  of  his  article  "Morgue  la  Fee  et  Morgan 
Tud",  Romania,  XXVIII,  321  ff.  (1899),  F.  Lot  suggests  that  Geoffrey 
based  his  famous  description  of  Arthur's  end  on  an  Irish  tale,  which 
probably  reached  him  in  a  Welsh  version.  The  grounds  of  the  sug- 
gestion, however,  are  insufficient. 

The  name,  "Morgan  Tud",  occurs  only  in  the  Welsh  "G-eraint  and 
Enid"  (Loth,  Mabinogion2,  II 143,  174)  —  as  the  name  of  a  wonderful 
male  physician.  Zimmer,  Foerster's  edition  of  Chretien's  Erec,  pp.  XXVII ff., 
argued  that  this  otherwise  unknown  person  was  a  blundering  creation 
of  the  Welsh   writer,    which  was    due  to   his  ignorance    of  the  fairy- 
queen  (Morgue,  Morgain)  of  his  French  original  (Chretien's  Erec).    For 
a  refutation   of   this  hypothesis,    cp.  Miss  Paton,    op.  cit,  pp.  259  ff., 
and  J.  Loth,  Contributions  a  V etude  des  romans  de  la  Table  Ronde 
(section   entitled,   Morgan  Tut),   pp.  5 Iff.  (Paris,  1912).     For  a  re- 
futation of   the    opposite   theory,    according   to    which   the   change    of 
Morgan's  sex  was  due  to  a  misunderstanding  on  the  part  of  Chretien 
of  what  was  originally  a  Welsh  source,  see  Miss  Paton,  loc.  cit.    This 
latter  theory  was  proposed  by  J.  Loth,   Revue  Celtique,  XIII,  496 f. 
(1892)  and  defended  by  F.  Lot  in  his  article  just  named.    Miss  Paton, 
herself,  pp.  263 ff.,    urged   that  Morgan  Tud  of  the  Welsh  text  was 
merely  a  corruption  of  the  Old  Welsh  proper  name,   Morgetiud  (and 
variants)  —   modern  Meredith.    This  seems  to  me  the  most  probable 
explanation   of   all,    but  subsequently,    Loth,    Contributions,  pp.  56  ff., 
has   connected   the   Welsh    Tut  (Tud)  with    Old  Irish  tuath,  which 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  81 

In  the  face  of  the  scanty  and,  for  the  most  part,  ambiguous 
evidence,  one  is  compelled  to  fall  back  on  general  considerations 
in  order  to  reach  a  final  decision  in  the  case.  Looking  at  the 
question  from  this  point  of  view,  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that 
the  above-mentioned  conception  must  have  already  prevailed  among 
the  Bretons  before  their  exodus  from  Great  Britain;  for  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  reason  why  such  a  conception  should  have 
sprung  up  among  them,  after  they  had  left  the  land  with  which 
Arthur's,  glory  was  associated,  and,  besides,  we  know  that  their 
kinsmen  of  Cornwall,  who  remained  behind,  were,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  twelfth  century,  cherishing  the  faith  in  the  hero's 


sometimes  means  "magician".  He  supposes  that  this  was  translated 
by  an  Anglo-Norman  "Morgan  le  Fe  or  le  Fed"  (fee  being  masculine 
in  the  Norman  dialect)  and  that  Chretien  misconstrued  this  as  feminine. 
Cp.  too  Loth's  recent  article,  Revue  Celtique,  (1920).  To  the  present 
writer,  however,  all  of  this  is  unconvincing.  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth, 
Benoit  de  St.  Maure  and  the  author  of  Layamon's  original,  not  to  look 
for  others,  all  knew  of  Morgan  as  a  supernatural  female  and  there 
is  no  need  of  hazardous  speculations,  therefore,  to  explain  how  Chretien 
conceived  of  her  similarly. 

*e  For  a  summary  of  discussions  concerning  Avalon  (Avallon) 
or  Avallach  and  the  literature  of  the  subject,  see  W.  E.  Meads  Se- 
lections from  Morte  Darthur,  pp.  31 6  f.  (1897)  and  Bruce,  Mort 
Artu,  p.  273.  Zimmer,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XII1,  238ff. 
(1890)  andBrugger,  ibid.,  XXVII1,  98ff.  (1898)  contended  that  Avalon, 
like  everything  relating  to  Arthur's  translation,  was  unknown  to  the 
Welsh.  On  this  subject,  see  still  further  pp.  74 ff.,  above.  Lot  in  his 
"Glastonbury  et  Avalon",  Romania,  XXVII,  553ff.  (1897)  attacked 
Zimmer's  thesis,  but,  himself,  advanced  the  improbable  view  that  Avalon 
was  originally  the  name  of  a  man  (or  god)  and  not  of  a  place  and 
that  the  latter  conception  is  due  to  French  misunderstandings  of  the 
original  Celtic  form  of  the  name,  Avalloc.  —  F.  M.  Warren  points 
out  in  "The  Island  of  Avalon",  MLN,  XIV,  93f.  (1899)  that  Avalon 
is  already  known  to  the  author  of  Le  Couronnement  de  Louis,  who, 
11.  1796,  1827,  uses  the  expression,  "tot  Tor  d'Avalon",  as  a  hyper- 
bole for  riches.  This  poem  was  written  in  the  Isle  de  France  about 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century.  Warren  regards  it  as  earlier  than 
Wace's  Brut.  This  cannot  be  determined  definitely,  but  the  phrase 
at  least  shows  no  influence  from  the  Brut. 

For  the  identification  of  Avalon  with  Glastonbury,  cp.  Part  II, 
below. 


82  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

return  with  equal  fervor  —  a  faith  which,  of  course,  they  must 
have  inherited  from  their  ancestors  of  something  like  six  cen- 
turies before.  On  the  other  hand,  Arthur  was  certainly,  also,  a 
character  in  Welsh  saga  in  the  first  part  of  the  ninth  century  (when 
Nennius  compiled  his  chronicle),  near  the  end  of  the  tenth  (when 
the  Annates  Cambriae  were  compiled),  and,  again,  round  about 
1100  (when  Kulhwch  and  Olwen  was  composed).  There  are  even 
numerous  allusions,  as  we  have  seen,87  in  Welsh  texts  to  his  last 
battle,  although  none  to  his  voyage  to  Avalon  and  expected  return, 
save  in  the  one  obscure  line  which  has  been  given  above.  It  seems 
strange,  indeed,  that,  having  been  adopted,  as  we  know  from  the 
sources  just  indicated,  as  one  of  their  national  heroes  by  this 
branch  of  the  Celts,  also  —  although,  perhaps,  with  less  ardor 
and  universality  than  was  the  case  with  his  nearest  kinsmen 
(the  Celts  of  Devon  and  Cornwall  and  Brittany)  —  the  conception 
of  his  apotheosis  should  have  made  no  impression  on  them.  Never- 
theless, in  view  of  the  evidence  that  confronts  us,  we  can  only 
conclude  that  the  two  passages  cited  above  (one  French  and  one 
Welsh)  do  not  express  a  general  Welsh  faith.  The  two  writers 
concerned  doubtless  knew  of  the  "hope  of  the  Britons"  that  pre- 
vailed in  Brittany  and  in  the  old  Celtic  territory  of  Southwest. 
England  and  adopted  it  for  the  Welsh,  although  in  Wales  it  was 
no  part  of  general  popular  tradition-88 

The  source,  then,  of  the  fine  description  of  Arthur's  trans- 
lation to  Avalon  in  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  Vita  Merlini,  of 
which  we  shall  hear  more  anon,  was,  no  doubt,  also  Armorican.89 

3.  The  Origin  of  the  Round  Table  and  Some 
Other  Questions  of  Celtic  Origins. 

1.   The  Round  Table:    (a)  According  to  Wace's  Brut  (11. 

9994  ff.)90   the  Round  Table  was  instituted  to  prevent  quarrels 

87  Cp.  p.   77,  note  79  above, 

88  As  far  as  the  French  writer  is  concerned,  he  may  have  simply 
invented  the  incident,  or,  if  this  is  not  so,  the  Welshmen,  referred  to, 
may  not  have  spoken  in  all  seriousness. 

89  It  is  to  be  remembered  that,  apart  from  general  knowledge 
of  Breton  matters,  Geoffrey  had  special  sources  of  information  on  this 
subject,  if  his  father  was  a  Breton,  as  seems  most  likely. 

80  Quoted  below,  in  the  chapter  on  Merlin. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  83 

in  regard  to  precedence  among  Arthur's  barons.  Now  we  hear  of 
similar  brawls  at  the  royal  board  in  the  Irish  sagas91  —  for 
example,  at  Conchobar's  table  in  Emain  Macha,  according  to  the 
Tale  of  MacDatho's  Pig,92  and  at  Bricriu's,  according  to  Bri- 
criu's Feast.93  The  following  is  an  incident  of  this  character 
which  took  place  at  Bricriu's  table.  He  prepared  a  great  feast 
for  Conchobar,  the  renowned  king  of  Irish  saga,  and  the  nobles 
of  Ulster.  Knowing  that  he  would  not  be  allowed  to  share  in 
the  feast  because  of  his  evil  tongue,  he  caused  to  be  built  for  him- 
self a  little  chamber  or  balcony  from  which  he  could  see  all  that 
went  on.  True  to  his  character,  he  determines  to  stir  up  strife 
among  his  guests,  and  when  they  begin  to  arrive,  he  urges  each 
secretly  to  demand  at  the  banquet  "the  hero's  portion",  as  it 
is  called  in  the  Irish  sagas  —  that  is,  the  biggest  portion,  which 
was  supposed  to  go  to  the  worthiest  warrior  at  the  table.  In  this  way 
he  approaches  successively  Loegaire,  Conall,  and  Cuchulinn,  the 
last-named  being,  so  to  speak,  the  Achilles  of  the  Old  Irish  epic. 
The  feast  commences  and  Bricriu  retires.  Soon,  however,  the  cha- 
rioteers of  the  three  champions  get  up  and  each  demands  the 
hero's  portion  for  his  master.  A  dispute  arises  over  this,  and  arms 
begin  to  clash,  but  it  is  agreed  after  a  while  to  divide  the  portion 
equally  among  the  three  claimants  and  to  refer  to  King  Ailill  of 
Connaught  the  decision  as  to  who  is  the  greatest  champion.  Quiet  is 
restored  for  the  time  being,  but  the  dispute  again  breaks  out  and 
Ailill  is  urged  to  render  his  decision.  To  test  the  warriors'  abi- 
lities he  puts  them  through  a  series  of  adventures  against  strange 


91  Zimmer  first  called  attention  to  these  Irish  parallels  to  the 
Round  Table,  in  the  Gottingische  G.  A.  for  June  10,  1890r  pp.  518 ff. 
He  says,  too,  p.  518,  note  1,  of  the  Pentecost  festivals  with  which  the 
Arthurian  romances  so  often  begin:  "Die  Maiversammlungen  der  Ar- 
thursage  sind  durchaus  im  keltischen  Altertum  begriindet".  He  cites 
the  May  festivals  held  at  Tara,  according  to  Irish  saga,  to  which  the 
overlord  of  Ireland  summoned  all  his  men.  Cp.  on  the  subject  of  this 
note,  also,  Brown,  "The  Round  Table  before  Wace",  pp.  193ff.,  in- 
cluding notes. 

92  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  Cours  de  UttSrature  celtique,  V,  66  ff. 

93  Ibid.,  pp.  120ff.  The  Irish  title  is  Fled  Bricrend.  Bricriu 
means  "Poison  Tongue". 


84  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

monsters.  Cuchullin  fares  best  in  these  trials,  but  Ailill,  who  is 
apparently  afraid  of  offending  the  rest,  gives  each  one  privately 
a  goblet  as  a  token  of  superiority.  Cuehulinn's,  however,  is  of  gold, 
whereas  the  others  are  of  inferior  metals.  So  when  subsequently 
at  a  feast  the  old  dispute  over  precedence  begins  anew  and  each 
presents  his  goblet,  much  bitterness  is  produced.  The  claimants 
are  again  sent  forth  now  on  a  fresh  series  of  adventures  to  test 
their  worthiness,  but  at  this  point  the  MS.   breaks  off. 

(b)  Like  these  episodes  of  the  Irish  sagas  is  the  account  which 
Layamon  gives  (11.  22736ff.)  of  how  the  Round  Table  came  to 
be  instituted.94  At  a  great  feast  on  Yule-day  which  Arthur  gave, 
says  Layamon,  a  sanguinary  quarrel  sprang  up  among  the  guests, 
"because  each,  on  account  of  his  high  lineage,  wished  to  be  with- 
in'' (whatever  that  may  mean).  Several  had  lost  their  lives  be- 
fore the  king  succeeded  in  quelling  it.  Shortly  after,  when  the 
king  was  in  Cornwall,  a  smith  there  offered  to  make  him  a  table  at 
which  1600  and  more  people  might  sit,  "all  around  about  so  that 
none  be  left  out  without  and  within,  man  against  man".  More- 
over, the  king  could  carry  it  about  with  him  anywhere.  In  four 
weeks'  time  the  work  was  completed  and  thereafter  all  was  peace 
and  fraternity  at  Arthur's  feasts. 

This  passage  has  nothing  to  correspond  to  it  in  the  extant 
text  of  Wace's  Brut,  but,  in  view  of  the  Irish  parallels,  must  be 
accepted  as  undoubtedly  derived  ultimately  from  Celtic  tradition. 
It  has  been  taken95  as  a  proof  that  Layamon  drew  directly  from 

94  The  similarity  was  pointed  out  by  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  "The  Round 
Table  before  Wace",  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and 
Literature,  VII,  183ff.  (1900). 

96  By  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  op.  cit,  and  "Welsh  Traditions  in  Laya- 
mons  Brut",  MPh.,  I,  95 ff.  (1903).  In  his  review  of  Brown's  "Round 
Table  before  Wace",  in  Romania,  XXlX,  634  (1900),  G.  Paris,  however, 
differs  from  Brown,  inasmuch  as  he  supposes  that  the  Welsh  traditions 
in  question  reached  Layamon  not  directly,  but  through  the  English. 
This  is,  of  course,  a  corollary  of  Paris's  very  questionable  theory  con- 
cerning the  Anglo-Norman  origin  of  the  Arthurian  romances. 

In  the  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXIX3,  247,  note  11  (1905), 
Brugger  has  attacked,  in  particular,  Brown's  assumption  that  Layamon 
derived  his  story  of  the  Round  Table  from  Wales.  He  points  out  very 
aptly  that  in  no  writings  of  Welsh  authorship  (Mabinogion,  Giraldus 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  85 

the  oral  traditions  of  his  neighbors,  the  Welsh.  We  have  seen, 
however,  that  the  English  writer  was,  in  all  probability,  wholly 
dependent  on  a  French  source  (an  expansion  of  Wace)  for  his 
so-called  additions,  so  that  the  inference  is  unwarranted  and  we 
are  left  in  the  same  state  of  doubt  as  to  the  Welsh  or  Armorican 
provenance  of  this  incident  as  of  the  incidents  of  the  Arthurian 
romances  generally  —  with  the  usual  balance  of  probabilities,  how- 
ever, in  favour  of  the  latter. 

(c)  It  has  also  been  proposed96  to  derive  the  Round  Table 
from  some  Celtic  feast,  like  the  Beltane  or  May-day  feasts  of  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland  —  a  spring  festival  which  descends  no 
doubt  from  pagan  times.  According  to  an  account  of  such  a  feast 
at  Callender,  recorded  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  boys  in  that 
neighborhood  on  May-day  cut  a  table  in  the  green  sod  by  digging 
around  it  a  trench  of  sufficient  circumference  to  hold  the  entire 


Cambrensis  etc.)  is  the  Round  Table  mentioned.  He  suggests  (pp.  245 ff.) 
that  the  name  "Round  Table"  arose  in  Armorica  and  that  Wace  pro- 
bably invented  the  idea  that  it  was  made  round  in  order  to  forestall 
quarrels  as  to  precedence.  On  the  other  hand,  according  to  La}'amon 
(or  his  source),  who  was  modifying  Wace,  the  purpose  was  to  put  an 
end  to  such  quarrels.  Like  Ten  Brink  and  Mott,  Brugger  believes, 
as  against  Brown,  that  the  story  about  the  Round  Table  which  is  told 
in  Layamon  originally  was  not  connected  with  Arthur  at  all.  This 
may  well  be  so,  bnt  I  see  no  reason  to  imagine  ihat  this  connection 
was  first  made  by  the  author  of  the  expanded  Wace  (Layamon's  French 
original)  rather  than  in  the  sources  (probably  Armorican  by  origin)  on 
which  he  drew.  Similarly  with  the  idea,  which  we  find  in  Wace, 
that  quarrels  over  precedence  caused  a  round  table  to  be  constructed. 

In  this  same  article,  p.  246,  note  9,  Brngger  speaks  of  a  simi- 
larity between  the  Round  Table  and  the  table  of  the  Last  Supper  in 
the  Gospels,  which,  he  says,  is  not  purely  accidental,  for  the  latter, 
too,  is  "ein  Uberrest  altheidnischen  Opferbrauches".  But  wherever 
any  snch  similarity  exists,  it  is  under  the  influence  of  the  Grail  ro- 
mances. The  Grail  Table  was,  of  course,  modeled  by  Robert  de  Boron 
directly  after  the  table  of  the  Last  Supper. 

90  By  Lewis  F.  Mott,  "The  Round  Table".  PMLA,  XX,  231  ff. 
(1905).  Brugger,  Zs.  /.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXIX2,  238ff.  (1906), 
in  reviewing  this  article,  expresses  substantial  approval  of  its  results. 
I  agree,  however,  with  F.  Lot,  Etude  sur  le  Lancelot  en  prose, 
p.  245,  note  5,  in  rejecting  it. 


86  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

company.  Then  after  making  a  fire  in  the  circle  and  cooking  and 
eating  certain  prescribed  things  they  put  bits  of  cake  into  a  bonnet 
and  blindfolded  draw  them  out.  Whoever  draws  a  certain  black 
bit  is  to  be  sacrificed  to  Baal  to  induce  him  to  render  productive 
the  year  which  has  just  begun.  The  sacrifice  is  now  a  joke,  but, 
originally  an  actual  human  sacrifice  was,  very  likely,  involved 
in  the  ceremony. 

There  is  a  far  cry,  however,  from  this  custom  observed  in 
a  limited  district  of  the  Highlands  to  the  Round  Table  of  Ar- 
thurian romance  —  even  in  its  most  fantastic  form,  that  of  Laya- 
mon's  Brut.  Besides,  it  is  a  serious  weakness  of  the  theory  that 
the  part  which  disputes  over  precedence  play  in  accounting  for  the 
form  of  the  table  is  unjustifiably  treated  as  an  afterthought. 

(d)  Miss  J.  L.  Weston97  connects  the  Round  Table  with 
some  hypothetical  turning  table  of  Celtic  tradition  of  mythical 
significance.  The  only  evidence  for  the  Round  Table  as  such  a 
turning  table  —  if  evidence  it  can  be  called  —  is  a  single  line 
in  Beroul's  Tristan,  1.  3384  (end  of  the  twelfth  century),  where, 
in  replying  to  a  messenger  of  Iseult's  who  is  inquiring  about  the 
king,  a  shepherd  says: 

"Sire",  fait  il,  "il  sit  an  dois. 
Ja  verroiz  la  Table  Reonde, 
Qui  tornoie  come  le  monde: 
Sa  mesnie  sit  anviron." 

From  the  eighth  century  Irish  text  called  The  Voyage  of 
Maelduin  down,  we  have  turning  castles  in  Celtic  tradition;  but 
no  mention  is  made  of  equally  marvelous  turning  tables  in  this 
same  tradition.  Beroul's  words  may  possibly  refer  to  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  life  to  which  the  company  gathered  about  the  board, 
like  the  rest  of  the  world,  are  subject,  or,  if  construed  literally, 
they  may  express  a  passing  fancy  of  this  particular  poet  —  but, 
whatever  the  meaning  of  this  obscure  line  may  be,  it  does  not 
justify  us  in  jumping  with  Miss  Weston  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  Round  Table  is  connected  with  some  supposed  solar  ritual. 

Whatever  we  may  think  of  the  theories  just  presented,  there 

97  See  her  article  "A  hitherto  unconsidered  aspect  of  the  Round 
Table",  iu  the  Melanges  offerts  a  M.  Maurice  Wilmotte  (Paris,  1910). 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  87 

is  hardly  room  for  doubt  that  Arthur's  Round  Table  belongs  to  the 
paraphernalia  which  attached  itself  to  him  in  Celtic  tradition.  We 
cannot  regard  the  legends  relating  to  it  as  a  mere  development  out 
of  the  old  stories  concerning  Charlemagne  and  his  twelve  peers, 
as  has  been  suggested.  The  Irish  parallels,  moreover,  render  it 
probable  that  the  conception  obtained,  also,  among  the  insular 
Celts,98  as  we  know  from  Wace  that  it  did  among  the  Bretons. 
Perhaps,  after  all,  in  seeking  for  an  explanation  of  this  most 
famous  of  tables  and  the  customs  which  were  connected  with  it, 
we  need  go  no  further  than  the  account  which  is  given  of  Celtic 
feasts  by  the  Greek  philosopher  and  traveller,  Posidonius,  who 
lived  in  the  first  century  before  Christ,  his  observations  being 
made  probably  in  Southern  Gaul.  He  tells  us"  that  at  their  feasts 
the  Celts  sit  in  a  circle  and  that  the  bravest  sits  in  the  middle 
like  the  leader  of  a  chorus.  Moreover,  primitive  Celtic  houses 
were  often  circular.  It  is  quite  possible  that  these  actual  customs 
may  have  determined  the  shape  of  the  celebrated  table  of  romance. 

2.  Excalibur  (Caliburnus  in  Geoffrey's  Historia,  IX,  4), 
which  is  Arthur's  sword  in  Geoffrey  and  commonly  in  the  ro- 
mances,100 is  certainly  identical  with  the  sword  Caladbolg  of  the 
Irish  prose  epic  Tain  bo  Cualnge  (The  Cattle-Raid  of  Cooley),101 
which  is  there  the  property  of  Fergus,  the  fugitive  ruler  of  Ulster. 
It  is  said  to  have  become  of  the  size  of  the  rainbow,  whenever  any 


98 
99 


Zimmer,  Gott.  G.  A.,  for  June  10,    1890,  p.  525,   denies  this. 

Quoted  by  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  "The  Round  Table  before  Wace", 
p.  195,  note  3,  from  Carl  Mtiller,  Fragmenta  Historica  Graecorum, 
in,  260  (Paris,  1849). 

100  In  the  relatively  late  Vulgate  ilfer/m-continuation  Arthur 
presents  it  to  young  Gawain.  Cp.  Sommer,  Vulgate  Version  of  the 
Arthurian  Romances,  II,  253. 

101  The  identification  was  first  made  by  Zimmer,  Gott.  G.  A., 
for  June  10,  1890,  pp.  516  f.  For  Caladbolg,  cp.  Miss  Winifred  Faraday's 
translation  of  the  Irish  epic:  The  Cattle-Raid  of  Cualnge,  London 
(Grimm  Library,  no.  16),  1904.  Loth  maintains,  Revue  Celtique, 
XIII,  495,  that  French  Calibor  (=  Caladbolg)  is  drawn  from  a 
written  Welsh  form.  See,  too,  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXV,  1  f.,  who 
contends  that  Geoffrey's  Caliburnus  does  not  necessarily  come  from 
the  Breton. 


88  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

one  struck  with  it.    Fergus  cuts  off  the  tops  of  three  hills  with 
this  sword.   Moreover,  like  Excalibur,  it  was  made  in  fairy-land. 

3.  Miscellaneous  Celtic  folk-tale  motifs,  such  as  are  found, 
for  example,  in  the  Tristan  romances.102  With  regard  to  such 
motifs,  it  should  be  premised  that  even  in  instances  where  insular 
records  appear  to  offer  parallels  to  incidents  in  Arthurian  ro- 
mance, it  may  be  that  the  same  stories  were  current  in  Brittany 
and  transmitted  thence  to  the  French  writers  —  only  the  com- 
plete absence  of  all  Breton  records  from  the  Middle  Ages  leaves 
us  without  the  means  of  control.  We  may  select  for  notice  here, 
particularly:  (a)  the  motif  of  the  Turning  Castle  mentioned  above, 
which  is  found  in  La  Mule  sans  Frein,  11.  440ff.,  the  Middle 
High  German  Diu  Krone,  11.  12 95 Iff.,  and  other  romances,  both 
metrical  and  prose,  and  is,  likewise,  familiar  to  Irish  saga,  Voyage 
of  Maelduin,  etc.;103  (b)  the  motif  of  the  Beheading  Game:104 
A  strange  visitor  turns  up  at  court  and  offers  to  submit  himself 
to  decapitation  at  the  hands  of  a  knight,  provided  that  at  the 
expiration  of  a  given  period  the  knight  will,  in  turn,  subject  him- 
self to  the  same  test  of  courage.  The  knight  naturally  accepts 
this  as  a  very  easy  test,  but  to  his  surprise  the  stranger  picks 
up  his  head  after  decapitation  and  at  the  appointed  time  is  ready 
to  return  the  blow.  This  incident  is  found  in  several  romances  — 
earliest,  perhaps,  in  the  so-called  Livre  de  Caradoc  (Livre  de 
Karados),10[>  which  is  an  interpolation  in  the  first  continuation 
of  Chretien's  Pe?xeval.  It  is  even  better  known,  however,  through 
the  Middle  English  romance,  Sir  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight, 

102  Cp.  especially  Gertrude  Schoepperle:  Tristan  and  Isolt,  II, 
267ff.     (Frankfort  and  London,   1913). 

103  Cp.  Gideon  Huet,  "Le  chateau  tournant  dans  la  Suite  du 
Merlin",  Romania,  XL,  235  ff.  (1911).  Cp.,  too,  W.  E.  Sypherd, 
Studies  in  Chaucer's  House  of  Fame,  pp.  114ff.  (Publications  of 
the  Chaucer  Society,  London,  1907),  where  numerous  Celtic  examples 
of  Whirling  Houses  are  given,  but,  also,  some  from  other  sources. 

104  On  this  motif  both  in  the  romances  and  in  folk-tales,  cp. 
G.  L.  Kittredge,  A  Study  of  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  pp. 
9 If.,   147ff.  (Cambridge,  Mass.,   1916). 

106  Cp.  Potvin's  Perceval  li  Gallois,  III,  117—221.  For  the 
episode  in  question,  cp.  ibid.,  pp.   125  ff. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  89 

which  certainly  goes  back  substantially  to  a  lost  French  original. 
But  we  have  this  same  incident  also  in  the  Irish  saga,  named 
above,  Bricriu's  Feast,106  of  which  a  manuscript  from  circa  1100 
has  been  preserved,  but  which  is  itself  much  older.  One  of  the 
tests  of  courage  which  the  three  champions  Loegaire,  Conall,  and 
Cuchullin,  have  to  undergo  in  that  tale  is  an  adventure  of  this 
nature  with  the  giant  Uath  Mac  Imomain  (Fright,  Son  of  Great 
Fear).  Cuchulinn,  however,  alone  is  equal  to  the  test.  When  the 
giant  has  been  decapitated,  he  clasps  his  head  to  his  breast  and 
jumps  into  the  lake.  The  next  day  he  returns  and  when  Cuchulinn 
exhibits  no  fear  even  when  stretched  out  and  ready  to  receive  the 
fatal  blow,  his  enemy  spares  him,  at  the  same  time,  declaring 
him  to  be  the  first  of  Irish  warriors. 

4.  The  individual  episode  in  the  romances  the  insular  Celtic 
—  apparently  Scotch  —  origin  of  which  appears  best  assured  is 
one  that  also  occurs  in  the  Livre  de  Caradoc,101  just  mentioned  — 
viz.  the  episode  of  Carados  (Caradoc,  Karados)  and  the  serpent, 
which  occurs  also  as  a  Gaelic  tale108  and  was  still  in  oral  circu- 


108  Cp.  George  Henderson,  Fled  Bricrend,  pp.  116ff.  (London, 
1899).    Kittredge,  op.  cit.,  pp.  10  ff.,  gives  an  analysis  of  the  episode. 

107  Potvin,  op.  cit.,  II,  191  ff.  Secondary  to  this  version  is  the 
one  in  the  Roman  de  Renart  le  Contrefait.  See  Miss  C.  A.  Harper, 
MLN,  XIII,  422  f. 

108  Cp.  J.  F.  Campbell's  Popular  Tales  of  the  West  Highlands, 
IV,  Introduction,  pp.  XCVf.  Campbell  took  it  down  from  a  travelling 
tinker.  "The  Queen  of  Scotland",  no.  301  in  Child's  collection  of 
ballads,  is,  also,  a  variant  of  this  Carados  story. 

It  was  Miss  C.  A.  Harper,  "Carados  and  the  Serpent",  XIII,  417  ff. 
(1898),  who  first  observed  the  resemblance  of  the  episode  in  the 
Livre  de  Caradoc  (Karados}  to  the  Highland  tale.  She  discusses 
there  the  relations  of  all  the  four  versions  which  I  have  named. 

G.  Paris,  "Caradoc  et  le  Serpent",  Romania,  XXVIII,  214ff. 
(1899),  following  up  Miss  Harper's  study,  pointed  out  that  this  story 
was  also  a  part  of  Welsh*  tradition  in  the  Middle  Ages,  for  a  know- 
ledge of  it  is  implied  in  a  Welsh  triad  (Loth,  Mabinogion2,  II,  284 f.) 
on  three  famous  chaste  young  women  of  Britain.  Here  the  heroine 
is  called,  to  be  sure,  not  Guinor  (in  variant  forms),  as  in  the  Livre 
de  Karados,  but  Teg  an  Eur  on  (Eurvron),  i.  e.  Tegan  of  the  Golden 
Breast.  Assuming  that  Caradoc  Brechbras  belonged  to  Armorican 
tradition,  Paris  concluded  that  the  tale  reached  Wales  from  Brittany. 


90  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

lation  in  the  nineteenth  century  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland. 
The  essential  features  of  the  story  as  we  find  it  in  the  French 
are  as  follows: 

Carados  (Caradoc)  is  the  son  of  the  enchanter  Eliaures  and 
of  Queen  Ysaune  who  has  been  unfaithful  to  her  husband.  After 
he  has  grown  up,  he  learns  from  his  true  father  the  secret  of  his 
birth,  but  he  is  indignant  when  he  hears  the  story  and  repeats 
it  to  the  king,  whom  he  has  hitherto  supposed  to  be  his  father. 
The  king  then  shuts  Ysaune  up  in  a  tower,  but  her  lover  still 
manages  to  visit  her,  until  they  are  detected  by  their  son,  who 
again  informs  on  them.  Ysaune  appeals  to  Eliaures,  who  offers 
to  punish  Carados  in  this  way:  He  will  create  a  horrible  serpent 
and  shut  him  up  in  her  cupboard.  When  Carados  visits  her,  she 
is  to  send  him  there  immediately  for  her  mirror.  As  soon  as  he 
puts  in  his  hand,  the  serpent  will  wind  about  his  arm.  His  flesh 
will  then  waste  away  and  in  two  years  he  will  die.  The  mother 
agrees  to  this  and  carries  out  her  part  in  the  plot.  The  serpent 
winds  about  the  arm  of  Carados  and  his  mother  Ysaune  then  tells 
him  that  he  has  got  what  he  deserves  and  that  the  best  thing  for 
him  to  do  is  to  go  forth  and  repent  of  his  sins  during  the  two 
years  of  life  left  to  him.  Carados  takes  the  advice  and  goes  into 
an  abbey.  Here  he  is  discovered  after  a  long  search  by  his  friend 
Cador  of  Cornwall,  who  wishes  to  kill  the  serpent,  but  cannot, 
since  his  friend's  life  is  bound  up  with  that  of  the  creature.  Cador, 
however,  induces  Carados  to  go  with  him  to  Ysaune's  tower,  to 
see  if  something  cannot  be  done  for  him,  and,  owing  to  his  repro- 
aches, she  consults  with  her  paramour,  who  prescribes  the  follow- 
ing procedure  by  which  the  unhappy  Carados  may  be  released 
from  the  serpent:  Only  a  beautiful,  well-born  maiden  who  loves 
Carados  loyally  can  effect  the  release.  This  maiden  must  pre- 
pare two  caldrons  and  fill  one  with  milk  and  the  other  with  the 
sourest  wine  she  can  find.    She  must  get  into  the  caldron  of  miLk 

The  story,  however,  he  believed,  was  ultimately  Irish  and  had  nothing 
to  do  with  Caradoc.  In  "Caradoc  et  Saint  Paterne",  Romania,  XXVIII, 
568  ff.  (1899),  however,  F.  Lot  shows  that  Caradoc  was  really  a  hero 
of  the  Britons  of  Strathclyde  and  Cumberland,  that  the  tale  in  question 
was  Scotch,  not  Irish  in  origin,  and  passed  into  Wales  by  way  of 
Northwest  England,  not  Brittany. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  91 

and  Carados  must  get  into  the  caldron  of  wine.  Then  she  must 
show  her  breast  over  the  edge  of  the  caldron  and  pray  to  God  to 
cure  Carados  immediately.  The  serpent,  disliking  the  wine  and 
tempted  by  the  sweet  milk,  will  then  leave  Carados  and  seize  her 
breast.  On  going  home,  Cador  learns  that  his  own  sister  loves 
Carados,  and  when  she  hears  of  the  condition  of  his  release,  she 
agrees  to  sacrifice  herself  for  her  lover.  Cador,  however,  is 
to  try  to  kill  the  serpent  as  he  passes  from  the  one  to 
the  other.  The  serpent,  however,  actually  seizes  hold  of  the  girl, 
and  Cador,  to  accomplish  the  release,  has  to  cut  off  a  part  of  the 
breast  to  which  it  has  attached  itself.  He  then  kills  it  between 
the  caldrons  and  Carados  marries  the  girl.  Later  on,  after  a  number 
of  strange  adventures,  Carados  obtains  from  a  knight  named  Alar- 
din  del  Lac  a  shield-buckle  which  has  a  wonderful  power  of  heal- 
ing wounds.  If  a  knight  has  lost  half  of  his  nose,  a  touch  of 
this  buckle  will  make  a  golden  nose  just  like  the  one  he  had  before. 
So  with  any  other  part  of  the  body.  Carados  takes  the  buckle 
home  and  touches  his  wife's  breast  with  it.  She  is  at  once  cured, 
but  henceforth  has  a  golden  breast.  She  is,  later  on,  the  only 
lady  at  Arthur's  court  who  can  stand  the  test  of  chastity. 

One  may  mention  in  conclusion  that  in  this  story  Carados's 
arm  was  said  to  have  always  remained  smaller  after  this  experience 
with  the  serpent,  so  that  he  was  known  henceforth  as  Carados 
Brisie  Braz  (Carados  with  the  broken  arm)  or  Briebraz  (short' 
armed).  This  rests  on  a  curious  misunderstanding  of  the  Celtic 
epithet  of  the  hero  —  namely,  Breichbras  (breich-&rm,  bras- 
strong),  which  really  means  virtually  just  the  opposite  of  what 
the  French  romancers  (including  the  author  of  the  Livre  de  Cara- 
doc),  being  misled  by  the  similarity  to  words  of  their  own  language, 
imagined.109 

109  It  is  a  delicate  question,  however,  whether  F.  Lot,  op.  ciL, 
pp.  222 ff.,  is  justified  in  assnining  that  the  retention  of  B  as  the 
initial  sound  of  this  epithet  proves  that  the  French  authors  used  written 
sources,  the  b's  in  their  language,  as  he  declares,  being  pronounced 
like  a  v  from  the  eighth  century  on,  so  that,  if  only  heard,  the  French 
would  have  written  down  v,  b.  Confusion  in  catching  the  spoken  name 
is  too  common  to  admit  of  a  confident  decision  in  this  case.  Cp. 
too,  W.  Meyer-Liibke,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XLIV1,  164,  on  the 
subject. 


92  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

5.  Arthur  himself  is  virtually  unknown  to  mediaeval  Irish  lite- 
rature of  purely  native  origin,110  but,  as  will  have  been  observed 


1  10 


In  his  article,  "Eine  verschollene  Artursage",  pp.  63  ff.  of  the 
Festschrift  fur  Ernst  Windisch  (1914),  Kuno  Meyer  calls  attention 
to  an  Aigidecht  Artuir  (=  Entertainment  of  Arthur)  in  a  list  of 
Irish  sagas  in  the  Book  of  Leinster  (twelfth  century).  Meyer  conjectures 
on  the  analogy  of  the  Middle  Irish  ballad,  Find  and  the  Phantoms 
(Book  of  Leinster),  that  the  lost  saga  described  how  Arthur,  whilst 
hunting  a  boar,  came  to  a  haunted  house  and  had  strange  adventures 
with  the  spirits  there. 

In  the  Revue  Celtique,  X,  185ff.  (1889),  Max  Nettlau  published 
from  Stowe  MS.  992  (Br.  Museum)  some  excerpts  from  an  Irish  ro- 
mance concerning  the  Holy  Grail  —  so,  too,  F.  N.  Robinson,  Zs.  f 
celt.  Ph.,  IV,  381  ff.  (1903)  fragments  from  a  MS.  in  the  Franciscan 
library  at  Dublin.  In  both  cases,  however,  the  Irish  is  not  original, 
but  based  on  the  Old  French  prose  romance,  Queste  del  Saint  Graal. 

R.  A.  Stewart  Macalister  has  published  from  MS.  Egerton,  128 
(B.  M.),  dated  1748,  The  Story  of  the  Crop-Eared  Dog  and  The 
Story  of  Eagle-Boy  (Irish  Texts  Society,  London,  1908).  He  entitles 
them  Two  Irish  Arthurian  Romances,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  King 
Arthur  appears  in  both,  and  the  principal  character  in  the  first  bears 
the  name  of  Sir  Galahad.  Nevertheless,  Miss  Weston,  Folk-Lore,  XX, 
36 Iff.  (1909),  very  properly  questions  their  right  to  be  called  Ar- 
thurian. The  stories  belong  to  the  "Wonder- Voyage"  type  of  tale,  as 
their  editor,  himself,  remarks,  and  the  mere  adoption  of  Arthurian 
names  does  not  render  them  Arthurian.  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  MPh.,  IX, 
120  ff.  (1911)  has  expressed  an  opinion  similar  to  Miss  Weston's.  The 
first  of  the  two  stories  is  probably  based  on  a  French  original,  the 
second  certainly.     Cp.  T.  P.  Cross,   MPh.,  X,  229,  note   1   (1913). 

In  his  " Arthurian  Motifs  in  Ghadelic  Literature",  Miscellany 
presented  to  Kuno  Meyer,  edited  by  Osborn  Bergen  and  Carl  Mar- 
strander,  pp.  18  ff.  (Halle,  1912),  George  Henderson  calls  attention 
to  another  "Wonder  Voyage"  tale  of  which  Lancelot  and  Galahad  are 
the  heroes,  preserved  in  Rawlinson  MS.  B.  512  (Bodleian  Library). 
This,  however,  is  as  little  Arthurian  as  the  two  stories  published  by 
Macalister.  Henderson  observes  that,  apart  from  fragments  about  the 
Grail,  Arthurian  motifs  may  be  traced  in  1.  Eachdoaidh  An  Ama- 
dain  Mhoir  (Tale  of  the  Great  Fool).  2.  Am  Brat  (The  Cloak). 
3.  Am  Br  on  Binn  (The  Melodious  Sorrou).  These  are,  however, 
all  late  and  manifestly  derived  from  the  French  romances.  No.  3  is 
a  Gaelic  ballad  which  Henderson,  himself,  took  down  at  Dalibrog, 
South  Uist,  in  1892,  from  oral  recitation.  The  King  of  Britain  dreams 
of  a  fair  lady    and  falls    in  love    with  his    vision    of   her.      Gallomhai 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  93 

from  the  preceding  pages,  this  is  not  true  of  many  of  the  motifs 
that  occur  in  the  Arthurian  romances.  We  have  seen  above  that 
mediaeval  Breton  literature  is  practically  non-existent  and  that  the 
bulk  of  extant  works  of  the  imagination  in  Welsh  for  the  same 
period  is  not  very  large.  On  the  other  hand,  an  enormous  quan- 
tity of  Irish  folk-tales  and  sagas  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  MSS. 
of  the  eleventh  and  following  centuries  and  of  this  body  of  narra- 
tive literature  much  was  actually  composed  at  a  still  earlier  date. 
These  sagas,  etc,  reflect,  moreover,  a  more  primitive  state  of 
society  than  the  extant  literature  of  any  other  branch  of  the 
European  races,  and  hence  they  offer  a  store  of  material  for  the 
folk-lorist  which  is  without  parallel,  as  far  as  the  Occident  is  con- 
cerned. Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  natural  that  students  of 
the  romances  who  approach  the  subject  from  the  folk-lorist's  point 
of  view  should  so  frequently  seek  in  Irish  tradition  the  origin 
of  the  tales  that  make  up  the  plots  of  the  French  romances.  In 
cases  where  the  theory  of  Irish  origins  is  justified,  it  would  seem 
most  probable  that  the  stories  in  question  reached  France  by  way 
of  Wales  and  England.  Nevertheless,  difficult  as  navigation  be- 
tween Ireland  and  France  might  seem  to  be  under  mediaeval  con- 
ditions, direct  intercourse  between  the  two  countries  was  not  un- 
known in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  late  Professor  Zimmer  has 
even  striven  to  prove  that  the  usual  trade-route  between  Ireland 
and  the  Continent  in  those  centuries  was  across  the  sea  from  the 
Irish  coast  to  the  mouth  of  the  Loire.111    Inasmuch  as  all  records 


(Gawain)  traverses  the  sea  for  weeks  to  find  her.  A  "big  man"  (i.  e. 
giant)  keeps  her  captive  in  a  tower.  In  collusion  with  Gawain,  she 
lulls  him  to  sleep  with  her  harp.  Gawain  then  cuts  off  the  giant's 
head  and  they  escape.  In  general,  it  should  be  said  that  Henderson 
was  ignorant  of  Arthurian  discussions  and  his  observations  on  the  sub- 
ject are  utterly  confused  and  without  value. 

For  evidence  regarding  the  intercourse  between  the  Celts  of 
Ireland  and  those  of  Great  Britain  by  which  the  traditions  of  the 
former  might  have  been  diffused  among  the  latter,  cp.  T.  P.  Cross, 
Revue  Celtique,  XXXI,  421  ff.  (1910),  where  the  earlier  literature  of 
the  subject  is  given  in  the  notes.  For  direct  communication  between 
Ireland  and  Gaul  (France)  cp.  H.  Zimmer,  Uber  direkte  Handels- 
verbindungen  Westgalliens  mit  Irland  in  Altertum  und  friihen 
Mittelalter  in  the  Sitzungsberichte,  Philos.-Hist.  Klasse,  of  the  Berlin 


94  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  the  sagas  current  in  Brittany  during  the  period  under  discus- 
sion have  perished,  we  cannot  say  whether,  after  all,  these  same 
motifs  and  incidents  which  we  find  in  the  Irish  sagas  may  not 
have  been  familiar  also  to  the  Bretons,  and  so  have  passed  di- 
rectly from  them  into  France.  Besides,  the  ancestors  of  the  Bre- 
tons were  brothers  of  the  ancestors  of  the  Welsh  and  so  even 
where  such  tales  are,  indeed,  Irish  by  origin,  they  may  have  been 
brought  over  from  Ireland  to  Great  Britain  before  the  emigration 
to  Armorica  began.  Waiving,  however,  these  considerations,  the 
debt  of  the  French  romances  to  Irish  sources,  in  any  event,  seems 
to  the  present  writer  to  have  been  greatly  exaggerated.  But  it 
is  best  to  let  the  reader  judge  for  himself  by  putting  before  him 
the  materials  in  a  typical  case  —  viz.,  the  outlines,  respectively, 
of  a  French  romance,  Chretien's  Yvain,  and  of  an  Irish  saga, 
Serglige  Conculaind  (Cuchulinri's  Sick  Bed)  —  a  version  of  the 
fairy-mistress  theme  —  which,  in  some  variant  form,  is  supposed 
to  be  the  source  of  this  same  romance:112 


Academy  of  Sciences  for  1905,  pp.  363  ff.,  430  ff.,  543  ff.,  582  ff.  — 
for  1910,  pp.  1031  ff.  See,  too,  this  scholar's  Auf  welchem  Wege 
kamen  die  Goidelen  vom  Kontinent  nach  Irland?  in  the  Abhand- 
lungen  of  the  same  Academy  for  1912  —  especially,  pp.  55  ff.  As. 
against  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  Rhys,  etc.,  Zimmer  (approved  by 
Kuno  Meyer)  argues  that  the  Gaels  in  their  original  settlement  of  Ire- 
land did  not  reach  that  island  by  way  of  Great  Britain,  but  direct 
from  West  Gaul,  and,  moreover,  that  down  to  the  English  conquest 
of  Ireland  (late  twelfth  century)  the  main  intellectual  as  well  as  trade 
relations  of  Ireland  were  with  West  Gaul  and  not  with  Great  Britain. 
The  argument,  on  the  whole,  seems  plausible  but,  as  J.  Vendryes  has 
remarked  in  his  review  of  the  paper  (Rev.  Celt.),  Zimmer  does  not 
sufficiently  consider  the  archaeological  evidence. 

112  This  is  the  thesis  of  A.  C.  L.  Brown  in  his  Iwain,  a  Study 
in  the  Origins  of  Arthurian  Romance:  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes 
in  Philology  and  Literature,  vol.  8  (1903).  Cp.,  too,  his  articles, 
"The  Knight  of  the  Lion",  PMLA,  XX,  673  ff.  (1905)  and  "Chretien's 
'Yvain'",  MPh.,  IX,  109ff.  (1911).  In  these  articles  Brown  brings 
together  from  various  Irish  sagas  parallels  —  frequently  far-fetched, 
as  it  seems  to  me  —  to  all  the  principal  features  of  the  Yvain  —  a 
parallel  to  one  detail  from  one  saga,  a  parallel  to  another  detail  from 
another  saga,  and  so  on.  He  concludes  that  all  the  motley  incidents 
of  the  French  poem  are  derived  from  a  single  Celtic  marchen. 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  95 

In  Yvain  the  hero,  incited  by  the  report  of  another  knight, 
Calogrenant,  tries  the  adventure  of  the  fountain  in  the  Forest 
of  Broceliande:  If  one  pours  water  from  this  fountain  on  a  stone 
nearby,  a  terrible  storm  arises  which  is  followed  by  a  calm. 
A  knight  then  comes  forth  and  jousts  with  the  offender.  On  the 
way  to  the  fountain  Yvain  (Ivain,  Iwain),  like  Calogrenant,  passes 
a  flock  of  fierce  fighting  bulls  guarded  by  a  giant  herdsman  — 
a  black  creature  with  a  head  larger  than  that  of  a  horse.  He 
goes  through  the  fountain  adventure,  but,  unlike  his  predecessor, 
overthrows  the  knight  and  wounds  him  mortally.  Yvain  pursues 
his  wounded  adversary  into  the  latter's  castle.  He  finds  himself 
caught  between  two  iron  gates,  but  he  is  recognized  by  Lunete, 
a  damsel  who  attends  the  lady  of  the  castle  and  who  had  once 
been  befriended  by  him  at  King  Arthur's  court.  This  girl  gives 
him  a  magic  ring  which  will  render  the  holder  invisible  at  will. 
By  the  use  of  this  talisman  Yvain  witnesses  in  safety  the  funeral 
of  the  knight  he  has  slain  and  falls  in  love  with  the  latter's  widow, 
Laudine.  Immediately  afterwards  he  begins  the  courtship  of  the 
widow  and  with  the  help  of  the  damsel  gains  her  consent.  He 
now  becomes  the  lord  of  the  castle  and  defender  of  the  fountain. 


I  have  given  the  two  stories  according  to  Brown's  own  analysis, 
with  only  slight  compression  here  and  there,  so  that  whatever  resem- 
blance there  may  exist  between  the  two  loses  nothing  in  my  outlines. 
hi  his  review,  MLN,  XIX,  80  ff.,  (1904)  of  Brown's  Iwain,  — which  he 
describes  as  "more  especially  a  contribution  to  the  history  of  Celtic 
mythology  than  a  monograph  on  the  romance  of  Crestien  de  Troyes" 

—  Nitzo  dissents  from  the  author's  hypothesis  that  the  French  poet 
was  following  "a  clearly  defined  conte" .  Similarly,  E.  Windisch,  Das 
keltische  Britannien  bis  zu  Kaiser  Arthur,  p.  181  (Leipzig,  1912). 

—  Already  Axel  Ahlstrom,  Melanges  de  philologie  romane  dedies 
a  Carl  Wahlund,  p.  302  (Macon,  1896),  expresses  the  opinion  that 
Chretien's  sources  for  the  Yvain,  besides  contes  and  popular  legends 
(such  as  he  supposes,  gave  rise  to  Marie's  lais),  embraced,  also,  "de  petits 
romans  en  prose"  on  the  same  subjects.  But  Chretien  knew  only 
French  (no  Celtic),  and  there  was  no  French  prose   so  early    as  this. 

In  his  Sage  vom  heiligen  Gral,  pp.  138  ff.  (Halle,  1898)  Wechssler 
argues  that  there  were  already  romances  of  chivalry  among  the  Celts, 
but  the  works  which  he  cites  to  prove  this  are,  in  reality,  French, 
e.  g.,  Chretien's  Perceval,  the  lays,  Milun  and  Boon  —  and  just 
how  far  they  contain  Celtic  elements  is  a  debated  question. 


96  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

In  his  new  capacity,  Yvain  barely  avoids  an  encounter  with  Arthur, 
but  when  the  king  departs,  his  wife  gives  Yvain  permission  to 
accompany  him  and  to  be  absent  for  a  year.  He  overstays  his 
time,  is  reproached  for  it,  goes  mad  in  consequence,  but  is  finally 
cured  by  an  ointment  of  Morgan  le  Fay's.  There  are  all  sorts 
of  disconnected  adventures  that  follow  upon  this.  He  succors  a 
lion  who  is  fighting  with  a  serpent  and  the  lion  henceforth  follows 
him.  With  the  beast's  assistance  he  rescues  Lunete,  who  is  con- 
demned to  be  burned  to  death  on  the  false  accusation  of  a  wicked 
seneschal.  In  the  midst  of  this  affair,  however,  he  combats  a 
giant  who  is  besieging  a  castle  and  threatening  to  kill  the  sons 
of  the  owner  or  carry  off  his  daughter.  Next  he  has  an  indecisive 
encounter  with  Gawain,  without  recognizing  his  identity,  in  the 
affair  of  two  sisters,  who  are  disputing  over  an  inheritance.  But 
this  adventure  is  interrupted  likewise  by  another  in  which  the 
hero  does  away  with  an  evil  custom  that  requires  thirty  girls 
of  the  Isle  of  Maidens  to  be  annually  delivered  over  to  two  mon- 
sters. Lastly,  Yvain  returns  to  the  fountain  and  stirs  up  a  storm 
there.  Lunete  discovers  who  he  is  and  brings  about  a  reconciliation 
with  Laudine. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  Cuchulinn' s  Sick  Bed: 113 
Cuchulinn  tries  to  kill  two  strange  birds  linked  by  a  golden 
chain  that  appear  at  a  lake  in  Ulster.  Being  unsuccessful,  he  sits 
down  against  an  upright  stone  and  falls  asleep.  In  his  sleep  he 
sees  two  women,  one  clad  in  green,  the  other  in  red,  who  come  up 
to  him,  laugh  and  keep  striking  him  until  he  is  almost  dead.  (As 
it  turns  out  this  is  the  fairy,  Fand,  and  her  sister.)  He  was  carried 
into  a  house,  where  he  lay  till  the  end  of  a  year  without  speaking 
to  anyone.  Then,  as  he  lay  in  the  bed,  a  man  mysteriously  ap- 
peared, who  sang  verses  promising  him  health  and  strength,  if 
he  would  accept  the  invitation  of  the  daughters  of  Aed  Abrat, 
one  of  whom,  named  Fand,  wished  to  marry  Cuchulinn.  The 
man  departed  after  that  and  they  knew  not  whence  he  came  or 

118  In  connection  with  this  tale,  I  will  call  the  reader's  attention 
to  an  interesting  account  of  the  Irish  fill  (professional  story-tellers) 
and  of  the  way  in  which  Irish  tales  were  handed  down,  which 
A.  C.  L.Brown  gives,  MPh.,  IX,   121  ff.  (1911). 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  97 

whither  he  went.  Cuchulinn  rose  up  and  spoke  and  went  back 
to  the  upright  stone  where  he  saw  again  the  woman  in  the  green 
cloak.  From  her  he  learned  that  Fand,  deserted  by  her  husband 
Manannan  mac  Lir  (a  Celtic  divinity),  had  fallen  in  love  with 
him.  Her  own  name  is  Liban.  She  is  sister  to  Fand  and  wife  to 
Labraid,  who  has  sent  her  to  ask  Cuchulinn  for  one  day's  assistance 
against  Labraid's  enemies,  promising  in  return  to  give  him  Fand 
to  wife. 

Cuchulinn  sent  his  charioteer,  Loeg,  to  see  the  mysterious 
land  from  which  she  came.  Liban  and  he  went  till  they  came 
to  the  place  where  Fand  was  waiting  for  them.  Then,  it  is  said, 
Liban  took  hold  of  Loeg  by  the  shoulder.  "O  Loeg",  said  Fand, 
"thou  wilt  not  come  out  alive  today,  unless  a  woman  protect 
thee! ,]  "  I  have  not  been  much  accustomed  to  woman's  pro- 
tection" was  Loeg's  reply.  Then  they  came  to  the  water's  edge, 
where  they  entered  a  boat  of  bronze  and  crossed  over  to  an  is- 
land. Loeg  saw  Labraid  and  his  palace  and,  returning,  told  his 
story  to  Cuchulinn  and  everyone  else. 

Again  Liban  came  to  invite  Cuchulinn  to  Mag  Mell.  She 
sang  to  him  in  praise  of  the  place  where  Labraid  dwelt  —  evi- 
dently fairy-land.114   "I  will  not  go  at   a  woman's  invitation," 


114  Otherworld  journeys  are  frequent  in  Celtic  literature.  For 
an  account  of  them  cp.  The  Voyage  of  Bran,  2  vols.  (London, 
1895  —  1897),  by  A  Nutt  and  K.  Meyer,  A.  C.  L.  Brown's  Iwain,  27  if. 
(Boston,  1903),  Josef  Baudis,  "The  Mabinogion",  Folk-Lore,  XXVII, 
31  ff.  (1916)  —  particularly,  pp.  35  ff.  There  seems  to  have  been  no 
distinction  in  the  minds  of  the  Celts  between  their  "Land  of  the  Dead" 
and  their  Elysium.  So,  lately,  Baudis,  loc.  cit,  who,  I  believe,  is 
right.  Hence  we  include  both  in  the  term  "Otherworld".  For 
a  discussion  of  the  whole  subject,  cp.  J.  A.  MacCulloch,  The  Religion 
of  the  Ancient  Celts,  pp.  362  ff.  (Edinburgh,  1911),  whose  conclusions 
are  different.  MacCulloch  (pp.  374)  disputes  the  view  held  by  DArbois 
de  Jubainville,  Baudis,  etc.,  that  the  two  Otherworlds  were  not  dis- 
tinguished. He  deduces  (p.  370)  the  idea  of  the  Celtic  Elysium  from 
some  early  myth  of  a  Golden  Age.  The  literature  concerning  the 
descriptions  of  the  Celtic  Otherworld  is  given  by  T.  P.  Cross,  Revue 
Celtique,  XXXI,  461,  note  3  (1910).  In  "Two  Otherworld  Stories". 
MLN,  XXXH,  280  ff.  (1917)  John  C.  Hodges  has  compared  with  Celtic 
conceptions  of  the  Otherworld  two  stories  from  the,  Arabian  Nights, 


98  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

he  declares;  but  he  again  consents  to  send  his  charioteer.  Fand 
admonishes  the  latter  that  Cuchulinn  must  come  with  speed,  for 
the  battle  is  appointed  for  that  day.  Loeg  returns  with  Fand 
and  describes  at  even  greater  length  the  fairy  palace  of  Labraid 
and  the  beauty  of  a  woman  there,  who  is,  doubtless,  Fand  her- 
self. Cuchulinn  is  now  persuaded,  mounts  his  chariot,  and  ac- 
companies Loeg  and  Fand  to  Mag  Mell.  At  early  dawn  he  trans- 
fixes with  his  spear  one  of  Labraid's  chief  enemies,  as  he  was 
washing  himself  at  a  well.  After  that  he  slew  still  another  and 
won  a  victory  for  Labraid.  In  return  he  received  Fand,  with 
whom  he  lived  for  a  month.  When  he  departed,  she  said  to  him: 
"I  will  meet  thee  in  whatever  place  thou  shalt  appoint  for  me 
to  come." 

After  Cuchulinn  returned  home,  he  revealed  to  his  wife,  Emer, 
the  appointed  place  of  meeting.  The  jealous  queen  lay  in  wait 
with  knives  to  murder  Fand.  Cuchulinn  rescued  her,  but  when 
Manannan  mac  Lir  heard  of  it,  he  suddenly  appeared,  visible 
to  Fand  alone.  When  she  saw  her  husband,  the  sea-god,  coming 
over  the  sea,  she  forsook  her  mortal  lover  and  went  away  with 
him.  When  Cuchulinn  perceived  that  she  had  gone,  he  sprang 
three  leaps  upward  and  three  leaps  to  the  right  of  Luacra,  so 
that  he  was  for  a  long  time  without  drink  and  without  food  among 
the  mountains  and  "tis  there  that  he  slept  every  night  upon  the 
road  of  Midluacra  — "  that  is  to  say,  he  ran  mad. 

Emer  persuaded  Conchobar  to  send  "  poets  and  people  of  wis- 
dom and  druids  of  the  Ulstermen"  to  heal  Cuchulinn,  but  "he 
sought  to  murder  the  people  of  wisdom".    However,  they  sang 


(viz.,  The  Porter  and  the  Three  Ladies  of  Baghdad  and  The  Man 
Who  Never  Laughed  during  the  Rest  of  his  Days.  Burton,  I, 
151  ff.,  VI,  160  ff.,  respectively),  which  seem  to  parallel  the  Celtic  more 
closely  than  any  others  in  that  collection.  In  the  Arabian  tales  the 
mortal,  not  the  fairy  mistress,  takes  the  initiative.  For  the  literature  of 
the  Fairy  Mistress  theme  in  Celtic  cp.  (besides  Brown's  Twain)  Cross, 
MPh.,  XII,  598,  note  1,  594,  note  2.  For  a  contemporary  Breton 
ballad  on  the  fairy  mistress  theme,  taken  down  by  J.  Loth,  cp.  "Le 
Comte  et  la  Fee",  Annates  de  Bretagne,  XXVII,  199  ff.  (1911)  — 
also,  a  Welsh  tale  noted  by  G.  Dottin,  "Notes  sur  le  Folklore  Gallois, 
ibid.,  XXIII,  462  ff.  (1907—8). 


Origin  of  the  Lays  and  Romances  99 

their  druidical  charms  over  him  till  they  captured  his  feet  and 
hands  and  till  he  recovered  a  little  of  his  senses.  He  asked  for 
a  drink  then.  They  gave  him  a  drink  of  forgetfulness.  As  he 
drank  the  drink,  there  was  no  recollection  to  him  of  Fand  nor 
of  anything  that  he  had  done.  Manannan  shook  his  cloak  bet- 
ween Cuchulinn  and  Fand,  so  that  they  should  never  meet  again. 
Most  readers,  we  believe,  will  agree  with  us,  that  it  would 
be  impossible  for  the  French  poet  to  extract  from  such  a  story 
the  plot  of  Yvain,  as  we  have  recounted  it  above.  Except  that 
in  each  the  lover  runs  mad,  on  losing  his  mistress,  the  two  stories 
have  virtually  nothing  in  common.  In  the  Yvain,  besides,  the 
loss  is  only  temporary. 


Chapter  III. 
Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors. 

We  have  now  come  to  Chretien  de  Troyes,  who,  even  if  he 
had  predecessors,  gave,  as  we  may  safely  assert,  a  new  value, 
and  probably  a  new  character,  to  the  poems  relating  to  Arthur 
and  his  knights.  The  fact  that  all  poems  devoted  especially  to 
Arthurian  subjects  before  Chretien  —  granting  that  such  existed 
—  have  disappeared,  shows  that,  on  the  whole,  they  could  not  have 
been  marked  by  any  great  literary  excellence.1 

We  know  nothing  positively  of  the  life  of  the  poet.  The 
designation,  "de  Troyes",  which  he  uses  in  the  Erec,  seems  to 
prove  that  he  was  a  native  of  Troyes  in  the  province  of  Cham- 
pagne,  and  that  he  was  a  herald  has  been  conjectured2  on  the 

1  This  is,  of  course,  contrary  to  Brugger's  view,  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXI2,  143  f.  that  all  the  finer  Arthurian  romances 
have  perished  and  that  we  possess  only  the  productions  of  a  period 
of  decadence. 

2  By  G.  Paris,  Journal  des  Savants  for  June,  1902,  pp.  295  f. 
=  pp.  251  f.  of  the  reprint   in  the  G.  Pans-Melanges  (Paris,  1910). 

Owing  to  the  logic-chopping  debates  between  Fenice  and  Thessala 
in  Cliges  (11.  3085  ff.  and  4409  ff.)  and  Laudine  and  Lunete  in  Yvain 
(11.  1589  ff.),  M.  Wilmotte  has  suggested,  p.  167  of  the  Bulletin  de 
la  Classe  des  Lettres,  etc.,  for  1890  of  the  Academic  Royale  de 
Belgique  that  Chretien  was  a  jurist;  but  Ins  scholastic  training  would 
sufficiently  account  for  the  character  of  the  passages  in  question.  Cp. 
the  same  scholar  on  Chretien,  Le  Moyen  Age,  for  1914,  pp.  102  ff. 
For  various  speculations  concerning  Chretien's  life  and  a  very  thorough 
sifting  of  such  speculations  see  especially,  G.  Paris,  loc,  cit.,  pp.  293ff. 
and  Foerster,  Chretien  Worterbuch,  22  ff.,  39  ff. 

Paris,  Melanges,  I,  260,  conjectures  —  and  W.  Meyer-Liibke, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XLIV  l,  162,  expresses  his  approval  of  the 
conjecture  —  that  Chretien  visited  England.  The  evidence  to  that 
effect  is:  1.  that  in  his  Cliges,  11.  4579 ff.,  the  poet  makes  the  in- 
significant English  town,   Wallingford  (Galinguefort),  the  scene  of  one 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  101 

basis  of  the  Lancelot  (11.  559 Iff.),  where  the  herald  recognizes 
Lancelot,  who  has  come  incognito  to  a  tournament,  and  cries  out: 
Or  est  venuz  qui  aunera  (i.  e.,  the  conqueror  has  come).  Chretien 
adds  that  this  was  the  first  time  the  expression  had  been  used: 

Nostre  maistre  en  fu  li  hira 
Qui  a  dire  le  nos  aprist, 
Car  il  premier ement  le  dist. 

In  any  event,  his  translations  from  Ovid  prove  that  he  had 
the  usual  scholastic  education  of  the  time  and  even  render  it  prob- 
able that  he  shared  the  renewed  ardor  with  which  the  study  of 
the  classics,  and,  particularly,  Ovid,  was  pursued  in  learned  circles 
toward  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century.  In  a  well-known  pas- 
sage at  the  beginning  of  Cliges  the  poet  enumerates  his  works 
up  to  that  date  (about  1168):  Erec  and  Enide,  a  poem  on  King 
Marc  and  Iseult,  and  translations  of  Ovid's  Ars  Amandi  (L' Art 
a"  Amors)  and  Remedia  Amor  is  (Les  Comandemenz  Ovide),  with 
two  other  pieces  which  appear  to  be  derived  from  the  same  writer's 
Metamorphoses.3 

of  Arthur's  tourneys,  as  it  had  actually  been  the  meeting-place  of 
Henry  II  and  his  barons.  2.  that  he  gives,  Cliges,  11.  276  ff.,  a  rather 
vivid  description  of  sea-sickness.  These  matters  are  supposed  to  have 
been  drawn  from  his  personal  experience.  Obviously,  however,  the 
inference  is  not  imperative.  Cp.,  contra,  Foerster,  Chretien  Wbrter- 
buck,  Introduction,  pp.  40  f. 

8  The  Cliges  begins  as  follows: 

Cil  qui  fist  d'Erec  et  d'Enide 

Et  les  Comandemanz  Ovide 

Et  l'Art  d* Amors  an  romanz  mist 

Et  le  Mors  de  l'Espaule  fist, 

Del  roi  Marc  et  d'Iseut  la  blonde, 

Et  de  la  Hupe  et  de  l'Aronde 

Et  del  Rossignol  la  Muance, 

Un  novel  conte  recomance 

D'un  vaslet  qui  an  Grece  fu 

Del  lignage  le  roi  Artu. 
It  is  generally  agreed  that  considerations  of  rhyme,  not  fact,  dictated 
the  order  in  which  these  works  are  enumerated.     Only  Meyer-Lubke, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XLIV  \  129  ff.  objects. 

Le   Mors    d'Espaule   has   been   taken   to   be    a   version    of   the 
classical   legend   concerning  Pelops's    shoulder  wich  was    devoured  by 


102  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

If  we  accept  the  Philomena  episode  of  the  Ovide  Moralise 
as  one  of  these  pieces,4  our  author  would  be  identical  with 
the  enigmatical  Crestiiens  li  Gois,  the  author  of  that  work,  but 
this  is  more  or  less  doubtful.  From  the  omission  of  the  hero's 
name  in  the  allusion,  G.  Paris  argued5  that  Chretien's  poem  con- 
cerning Marc  and  Iseult  was  episodical  in  its  nature  and  not 
a  genuine  Tristan  romance.  The  inference  seems  hardly  justi- 
fied, but,  in  any  event,  the  work  has  completely  disappeared..  Of 
the  extant  romances,  Erec  (about  1168)  is  the  first,  and  Cliges 
(about  1170)  the  second.  Next  come  his  three  latest  romances, 
with   the  following  approximate  dates:6  Lancelot,   1172,   Yvain, 


Ceres.  This  leg-end  receives  only  a  passing  mention  in  Ovid  —  though 
accessible,  doubtless,  to  Chretien  in  Hyginus,  Fable  83  —  and  be- 
sides, Mors  (bite)  does  not  necessarily  imply  devouring.  On  these 
grounds,  G.  Paris,  Melanges,  I,  248,  objected  to  the  above-mentioned 
identification  of  the  story  and  suggested  a  Celtic  origin.  Nevertheless, 
the  identification  is,  most  likely,  correct.  The  poem  dealing  with  the 
muance  (transformation)  of  the  three  birds  was,  of  course,  the  story 
of  Tereus,  Procne  and  Philomela  in  the  Metamorphoses.  It  is  possible 
that  both  UArt  d' Amors  and  the  Comandemenz  Ovide  refer  to  the 
Ars  Amandi.  —  For  Ovid's  influence  on  Chretien  see  F.  E.  Guyer's 
exhaustive  study,  "The  Influence  of  Ovid  on  Crestien  de  Troyes", 
RR,  XII,  97ff.,  216ff.  (1921).  I  regret  that  the  article  appeared  too 
late  for  me  to  cite  it  in  detail.  It  throws  new  light  on  many  con- 
ceptions in  Chretien's  poems  —  especially  on  those  that  relate  to  love. 
In  his  "Zum  Text  des  Erec",  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXVHI1, 
97 f.  (1911),  G.  Cohen  has  tried  to  show  that  the  above  lines  of  the 
Erec  are  spurious,  but  his  argument  is  futile.  As  far  as  I  know,  no 
one  has  expressed  approval  of  this  suggestion,  save  W.  Meyer-Liibke, 
"Crestien  von  Troyes  Erec  und  Enide",  ibid.,  XLIV  \  136.  On  the 
subject  of  the  above  lines,  cp.,  too,  Foerster,  Cliges3,  pp.  VI ff.  (Halle,  1910). 

4  So  G.  Paris,  loc.  cit,  and  C.  De  Boer  in  his  edition  of  the 
Philomena  (Paris,  1909);  but  for  an  argument  contra,  cp.  Foerster, 
op.  city  p.  VII,  note  2. 

5  Op.  cit.,  pp.  254  ff. 

e  So  G.  Paris,  op.  cit.,  pp.  262 ff.  He  dates  the  Erec  about 
1168.  For  discussions  of  the  respective  dates  of  Chretien's  romances, 
except  Perceval,  see  Foerster 's  introductions  to  these  romances  in  his 
editions.  His  maturest  opinions  on  the  dates  of  all  (including  the 
Perceval)  will  be  found  pp.  33  ff.  of  the  Introduction  to  his  Chretien 
Wbrterbuch.     Ibid.,  p.  39,    he   expresses   the   opinion  that  Chretien's 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  103 

1173,  Perceval,  1175.  The  Perceval  remains  a  fragment.  This 
was  the  last  of  the  poet's  works,  its  composition  being  broken  off, 
it  seems,  by  his  death.  We  leave  aside  Guillaume  d1 Angleterre, 
since,  even  if  it  is  Chretien's,7  the  poem  does  not  belong  to  the 
genre  of  Arthurian  romance. 

It  is  significant  that  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  career 
Chretien  should  have  been  occupying  himself  with  Ovid  and  with 
a  subject  which  lay  so  close  to  the  Arthurian  cycle  —  namely, 
the  story  of  Iseult.  With  the  exception  of  the  Cliges,  whose  con- 
nection with  Arthur  is  wholly  artificial,  all  the  writings  of  our 
poet  from  the  Erec  down  relate  to  the  matiere  de  Bretagne  and 
they  all,  without  exception,  betray  the  influence  of  Ovid.  It  would 
appear  that  the  course  of  his  development  was  as  follows:  He 
first  becomes  interested  in  the  love-poetry  of  Ovid  (it  may  be 
in  his  school-days),  then  he  is  attracted  by  the  theme  of  Tristan, 
which  he  knew  through  oral  tradition,  or,  possibly,  some  earlier 
French  poem  on  the  subject.  With  a  poem  of  some  kind  on  this 
hero  he  makes  his  first  essay  in  the  matiere  de  Bretagne.  If  we 
had  this  Tristan  poem,  we  should  probably  find  that  in  the  ana- 
lysis of  love-moods  the  influence  of  Ovid  and  of  the  French  ro- 
mances of  antiquity  was  already  traceable  in  it.  The  charm  of 
the  Celtic  stories  has  laid  its  hold  on  the  author  and  in  all  of  his 
succeeding  works,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  Cliges,  he  draws 
incidents  from  this  source,  though  by  no  means  exclusively.  Since 
Geoffrey  and  Wace,  however,  the  authority  of  Arthur  is  great, 


production  began  slightly  before  1160  and  ended  not  so  very  long 
after  1170.  He  dates  Cliges  about  1164  (p.  38)  and  accepts  the 
Erec  as  earlier,  though  he  suggests  no  definite  date  for  the  latter. 
The  Lancelot  and  Yvain  he  places  (p.  33)  between  1164  and  1173, 
the  latter  being  the  later.  Perceval  he  dates  not  much  later  than 
Yvain.  Paris  and  Foerster  agree  as  to  the  order  in  which  Chretien's 
Arthurian  works  were  written  and  we  may  indeed  regard  the  question 
as  settled.  See  further  on  the  date  1170  as  the  upper  limit  of  the 
date  of  the  Yvain  M.  Morner:  "Le  'terminus  a  quo'  du  Chevalier 
au  Lion",  Archivium  Romanicum,  III,  95  f.  (Geneva,  1919). 

7  Cp.  Introduction  to  Foerster's  edition  (Halle,  1911)  for  dis- 
cussion of  the  question  of  its  authorship.  Foerster  upholds  the  as- 
cription to  Chretien. 


104  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  under  the  influence  of  these  works  a  new  standard  of  refine- 
ment is  already,  to  a  certain  degree,  associated  with  his  court. 
Chretien  avails  himself  of  this  prestige,  which  had  more  or  less 
historical  validity  in  the  eyes  of  his  contemporaries,  since  per- 
haps the  majority  of  them  accepted  as  historical  truth  Geoffrey's 
pictures  of  Arthur's  glories,  and  makes  Arthur's  court  the  star- 
ting-point of  the  adventures  of  all  his  heroes.  This  conception, 
it  is  safe  to  say,  was  his  own  invention  —  only  the  setting  and, 
in  part,  the  incidents  are  Celtic.  The  ideas  which  his  romances 
embody  are  those  of  his  own  time  and  country,  and  even  the  in- 
cidents he  has  adapted  in  thorough-going  fashion  to  the  con- 
ditions of  French  feudal  society  in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth 
century.  A  comparison  has  often  been  made  between  Tennyson 
and  Chretien,  as  regards  their  attitude  towards  their  originals, 
and  it  is,  in  many  respects,  just.  The  French  poet  probably  ad- 
hered less  closely  to  a  single  original  for  each  poem  than  Tenny- 
son did  —  although,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  matter  of  incident, 
he,  no  doubt,  drew  less  from  his  own  invention  than  the  English 
poet.  Both,  however,  are  alike  in  making  the  stories  of  an  earlier 
time  the  vehicle  of  the  ideals  and  sentiment  of  their  own  age. 
Chretien's  principal  importance,  then,  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  is_ 
the  chief  literary  exponent  of  the  feudal  society  of  his  age.  Just 
as  the  Song  of  Roland  and  the  cycle  of  William  of  Orange  reflect 
the  feudal  life  of  the  early  twelfth  century,  so  Chretien's  ro- 
mances reflect  more  perfectly  than  any  other  works  the  life  of 
the  aristocratic  classes  in  the  later  twelfth  century. 

Now,  before  illustrating  somewhat  more  in  detail  by  reference 
to  the  specific  works  the  observations  we  have  just  made  with 
regard  to  Chretien's  development  and  his  shaping  of  the  Arthu- 
rian theme,  we  should  recall  briefly  what  were  the  distinctive 
ideals  of  this  society:  Chretien  himself  during  the  period  of  his 
literary  activity  was  connected  mainly  with  the  court  of  Marie, 
Countess  of  Champagne,  whose  father  was  Louis  VII  of  France 
and  whose  mother  was  Eleanor  of  Poitiers,  the  latter  (the  Eleanor 
of  Shakespeare's  King  John)  being  successively  the  wife  of  Louis 
VII  of  France  and  Henry  II  of  England.  At  a  later  period  he 
found  a  patron  in  Philip  of  Alsace,  Count  of  Flanders.    The  dif- 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  105 

ference  between  the  ideals  of  the  society  of  such  a  court  as  Marie's 
in  the  second  half  of  the  twelfth  century  and  those  of  the  earlier 
time  represented  by  the  chansons  de  geste  is  connected,  above  all, 
with  the  improved  position  of  women.  This  accords  with  the  gene- 
ral advance  of  civilization  from  the  unrestricted  reign  of  physical 
force  in  the  earlier  Middle  Ages  and  is  manifest  even  in  the 
political  arrangements  of  the  time,  since  women  were  now  permitted 
to  inherit  the  great  fiefs.  The  centre  from  which  this  move- 
ment radiated  was  the  south  of  France  —  the  land  of  Eleanor  of 
Poitiers  and  the  land  where  all  ideas  of  social  and  intellectual 
liberty  had  so  far  received  their  highest  development.  The  love 
lyrics  of  Provence  show  the  growing  idealization  of  woman,  and 
the  conception  of  the  amour  courtois  is  the  product  of  this  ideali- 
zation. 

The  starting-point  of  this  idealization,  to  be  sure,  was  earthy 
enough  in  its  nature  —  for  it  was,  first  of  all,  the  motive  of  self- 
advancement  that  prompted  these  Provencal  singers  —  the  trou- 
badours, as  they  are  called  —  to  confer  a  poetic  exaltation  on  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  the  great  barons  of  the  South,  and  where 
panegyric  passed,  apparently,  into  love-poetry,  the  love  was,  in 
the  vast  majority  of  instances,  a  pure  fiction,8  just  as  in  the 
case  of  the  amorous  effusions  with  which  the  Elizabethan  poets 
were  accustomed  to  tickle  the  vanity  of  their  Virgin  Queen.  But 
the  very  unreality  of  the  theme  of  the  troubadours,  who,  as  a  rule, 
were  separated  by  a  social  gulf  from  the  objects  of  their  pretended 
adoration,  drove  these  poets  within  themselves  to  an  idealization 
of  the  persons  addressed.9    For  the  poet  who  found  himself  in 


8  On  the  origins  of  the  amour  courtois  (Middle  High  German 
Minne)  cp.  E.  Wechssler's  "Frauendienst  und  Vassalitat",  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Liu.,  XXIV1,  158ff.,  and,  above  all,  his  Das  Kulturproblem 
des  Minnesangs:  Band  I,  Minnesang  und  Christentum,  Halle,  1909 
—  also  K.  Heyl:  Die  Theorie  der  Minne  in  den  dltesten  Minne- 
romanen  Frankreichs:  Marburger  Beitrdge  zur  romanischen  Philo- 
logie,  IV  (Marburg,  1911),  and  T.  F.  Crane,  Italian  Social  Customs 
in  the  Sixteenth  Century  and  their  influence  on  the  literatures  of 
Europe,  ch.  1  (New  Haven,  1920). 

9  Cp.  Wechssler's  book,  pp.  219ff.  As  appears  from  this  same 
work,  there  were  other  Christian   elements  that  helped  to   shape  the 


106  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

this  attitude  of  inward  contemplation  the  doors  were  thrown  wide 
open  to  the  spirit  of  mysticism  which  was  at  that  time  coloring 
contemporary  thought  in  all  its  higher  forms  and  which,  through 
St.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  and  his  fellows,  in  the  same  century, 
had  already  imparted  a  new  life  to  the  Church.  Thus  woman 
who  had  been,  in  the  beginning  of  the  Provengal  lyric,  merely  the 
object  of  a  rhetorical  lip-service,  became  in  the  course  of  its  devel- 
opment the  object  of  a  cult,  which  varied  in  genuineness  according 
to  the  spiritual  capacity  of  the  individual  singer.  As  all  stu- 
dents of  literature  know,  this  half  mystic  and  half  philosophical 
conception  of  woman  and  love  passed  from  Provence  into  Italy 
and  after  being  still  further  developed  there  by  Guido  Guini- 
celli  and  other  Italian  poets,  attained  immortal  expression  in 
Dante's  idealization  of  Beatrice  Portinari  in  the  Vita  Nuova  and 
1  Divina  Commedia.  For  the  great  mass  of  noblemen  and  noble 
ladies,  as  well  as  writers,  however,  these  conceptions  remained, 
no  doubt,  merely  a  convention  which  they  adopted  for  the  sake 
of  fashion  or  amusement,  but  they,  at  least,  pretended  to  take 
them  seriously,  and  so  from  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury the  duties  of  the  lover  towards  his  mistress  amount  to  a  com- 
plicated code10  —  a  code  which  was  perhaps  not  very  strictly - 
conformed  to  in  real  life,  but  which  at  least  expressed  an  ideal. 
Chretien's  patroness,  Marie  de  Champagne,  as  is  evident  from 

conception  of  the  amour  courtois  —  the  worship  of  saints,  the  doctrine 
of  Charitas,  the  methods  of  scholastic  philosophy  —  but  mysticism 
was  much  the  most  powerful  single  influence.  Contrary,  however,  to 
the  view  which  has  been  often  expressed,  Wechssler  points  out,  pp. 
434  ff.,  that  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary  (mariolatry)  was  a  con- 
sequence, not  a  cause,  of  the  cult  of  woman  that  was  developed  in 
Provence.    It  does  not  arise  until  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century. 

10  Cp.  especially,  the  one  embodied  in  Andreas  Capellanus's  De 
Amore  Libri  Tres,  edited  by  E.  Trojel  (Copenhagen,  1892).  Andreas 
was  for  a  time,  at  least,  in  the  service  of  Marie  de  Champagne,  and 
composed  his  treatise  apparently  before  1196. 

It  is  improbable  that  there  were  ever  any  serious  "courts  of  love" 
(to  decide  points  that  might  arise  in  the  relations  of  lovers).  On  the 
whole  subject,  cp.  W.  A.  Neilson,  "The  Origins  and  Sources  of  the 
Courts  of  Love",  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and  Lite- 
rature, VI  (Boston,  1899)  and  Crane,  op.  cit.,  ch.  1. 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  107 

the  poet's  own  statement  in  his  Lancelot,  played  an  important 
part  in  the  development  of  the  literary  tradition  relating  to  these 
things  and  his  work  is  the  very  highest  expression  of  su.oh  ideals. 
In  contrast  with  the  chansons  de  geste,  pictures  of  courtesy  and 
refinement  of  manners,  still  more  than  in  the  romances  of  anti- 
quity, constitute  one  of  the  main  sources  of  interest  of  the  narra- 
tive and  much  space  is  given  to  the  functions,  the  feasts  and 
festivities,  where  these  traits  are  exhibited  or  developed.  Even 
fighting  appears  in  a  more  civilized  aspect.  The  tourney,  with 
its  formal  regulations,  takes  the  place  of  the  rude  combats  of  the 
chansons  de  geste  and  the  somewhat  similar  descriptions  in  the 
romances  of  antiquity,  and  the  valor  of  the  knight  is  now  mainly 
employed  in  the  succor  of  distressed  women.  The  whole  modern 
conception  of  the  relation  of  the  sexes,  finds  here  its  beginnings. 
An  advance  towards  these  conceptions,  to  be  sure,  had  already 
been  made  in  the  romances  of  antiquity,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  both  in  respect  to  form  and  sentiment  these  works  — 
particularly  the  Thebes  and  the  Eneas11  —  were  the  true  pre- 
cursors and,  in  a  large  measure,  the  models  of  Chretien's  romances. 


11  Both  were  probably  composed  in  the  fifties  of  the  twelfth 
century.  On  the  relative  date  of  the  Eneas  see,  last,  Faral,  pp.  169  ff. 
There  are  the  beginnings  of  a  spirit  of  courtesy  in  the  fragmentary 
Latin  poem,  Ruodlieb,  (edited  by  F.  Seiler  as  Der  dlteste  Roman 
des  Mittelalters,  Halle,  1882),  which  has  usually  been  regarded  as 
of  German  origin  (near  Tegernsee)  and  dated  about  1030,  but  which 
M.  Wilmotte,  "Rodlieb,  notre  premier  roman  courtois",  Romania,  XLIV, 
373  ff.  (1916  — 1917),  now  assigns  to  Northeastern  Gaul  (valley  of  the 
Meuse,  between  Liege  and  Namur)  and  the  early  twelfth  century.  The 
author  is  not  so  much  interested  in  combats  as  in  the  manners,  diver- 
sions, decorations,  etc.,  of  aristocratic  society.  Wilmotte  sees  in  all 
this  an  early  independent  development  in  the  North  in  the  direction 
of  the  romances  of  antiquity  and  Chretien.  Wechssler,  Sage  vom 
heiligen  Gral,  p.  139  (Halle,  1898)  and  Problem  des  Minnesangs, 
p.  30  (Halle,  1911)  had  already  mentioned  Ruodlieb  in  this  connection, 
but  had  distinguished  between  the  pictures  of  courtly  life  here  and 
the  special  ideal  of  courtesy  which  we  find  in  the  romances  and  which 
he  derives,  I  believe,  justly  from  Southern  France.  In  any  event, 
there  is  no  evidence  that  the  Ruodlieb  exercised  any  influence  on 
subsequent  poetry. 


108  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

It  is  important  to  recollect  these  distinctive  traits  of  French 
feudal  society  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth  century  when  we 
come  to  consider  the  element  of  originality  in  Chretien's  works  — 
when  we  come  to  determine  what  is  Celtic  in  incident  or  manners 
in  his  poems  and  what  is  possibly  of  his  own  invention  or  at 
any  rate  of  non-Celtic  origin  in  these  works.  A  greater  contrast 
with  the  position  and  character  of  woman  as  depicted  in  these 
romances  than  that  which  is  furnished  by  the  Celtic  sagas  could 
hardly  be  imagined.12  In  the  latter  we  have  a  conception  of 
woman  which  is  inferior  not  only  to  that  of  the  Arthurian  ro- 
mances, but  to  that  of  the  sagas  of  any  other  branch  of  the  Indo- 
European  races,  even  the  earliest  in  date.  The  Irish  heroines  have 
strength  and  stature,  but  the  abundant  examples  which  Professor 
Zimmer  has  adduced  from  the  Cuchulinn  sagas  amply  justify  the 
term  gemein  ("low-down")  with  which  he  stigmatizes  these  women. 
Indeed,  the  exploits  of  some  of  the  most  famous  of  them,  like 
Medbh,  wife  of  King  Ailill  of  Connaught,  do  not  bear  repetition 
in  modern  polite  society.13 

Let  us  turn  now  to  Chretien's  romances  themselves.  Of  the 
romances  which  have  come  down  to  us  the  earliest  is  Erec.  The 
Welsh  tale  of  Geraint  and  Enid,  which  corresponds  to  Chretien's 


12  Alfred  Nutt,  The  influence  of  Celtic  on  Mediaeval  Romance 
(London,  1904),  and  others,  to  be  sure,  have  tried  to  establish  the 
existence  of  chivalrous  feeling  towards  the  weaker  sex  in  these  sagas  — , 
for  instance,  in  that  of  Deirdre,  the  great  heroine  of  Irish  legend  — ,  but, 
as  it  appears  to  me,  without  success.  I  will  refer  the  reader  for  the 
proof  of  the  contrary  to  the  remarkable  paper  by  the  late  Professor 
Zimmer,  published }  after  his  death  in  the  Sitzungsberichte  der  kbnig- 
lichen  preufiischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften.  Philosophisch- 
Historische  Classe,  1911,  IX,  174ff.  entitled  Der  Kulturhistorische 
Hintergrund  in  der  altirischen  Heldensage. 

18  J.  Vendryes,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  232  ff.  (1911)  in  his 
review  of  Zimmer's  paper,  has  tried,  to  be  sure,  to  show  that  the  in- 
ferences of  the  German  scholar  are  unjust.  J.  Loth,  too,  has  objected, 
ibid.,  XXXIII,  260,  note  (1912),  that  we  might  as  well  judge  the  manners 
and  morals  of  the  women  of  early  Greece  from  the  conduct  of  the 
Homeric  goddesses.  But  there  is  no  such  vulgar  abandon  in  the  case 
of  these  goddesses. 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  109 

poem,  is,  doubtless,  derived  directly  from  the  latter14  and  not 
vice  versa,  but  evidence  of  Celtic  elements  in  the  Erec,  itself, 
are  not  lacking.  To  begin  with,  the  name  Erec  is  Celtic,  being  an 
alteration  of  Breton  Weroc.15  The  same  seems  true  of  some  of 
the  other  principal  names  in  the  poem:  Eurain,  Mabonagrain,  etc. 
Take,  moreover,  the  episode  (11.  5461  ff.)  known  as  the  Joie  de 
la  Com:16  There  is  an  enchanted  garden  next  to  the  palace  of 
King  Eurain.  It  is  enclosed  with  a  wall  of  air,  which  is,  never- 
thelessT  just  as  effective  as  a  wall  of  iron,  so  that  no  one  can  enter 
it  save  by  the  will  of  the  possessor.  To  overcome  this  enchantment 
now  is  the  task  of  Erec.  Stakes  with  human  heads  crowning  them 
at  the  entrance  of  the  garden  confirm  the  warnings  which  the 
hero  has  received  from  Eurain  and  his  companions  against  under- 
taking the  adventure.  In  the  garden  under  a  sycamore  he  comes 
upon  a  beautiful  girl  reclining  on  a  silver  couch;  but  just  at  this 
moment  the  girl's  lover  appears  —  Mabonagrain,  a  giant  knight  — 
and  threatens  him.  A  combat  follows  in  which  Erec,  of  course, 
vanquishes  his  opponent  and  thereby  dispels  the  enchantment  of 
the  garden.  It  turns  out  that  Mabonagrain  had  promised  his  dam- 
sel that  he  would  never  leave  the  garden  until  he  had  been  van- 
quished in  combat. 

Now  Celtic  parallels  seem  to  establish  the  Celtic  origin  of 
the  episode.17    Similarly,  the  custom  of  hunting  the  white  stag 

14  Cp.  Part.  IV,  below. 

15  Cp.  G.  Paris,  Romania,  XX,  166,  note  1  (1881),  and  J.  Loth, 
Revue  Celtique,  XIII,  482  ff.  (1892),  who  prove  that  Zinimer's  deri- 
vation, Zs.  f.  frz,   Spr.  u.  LitL,  XIII  \  26 ff.,  is  wrong. 

16  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  321ff.  (1895).  Evrain  is  a  mistake 
for  Euuain  (i.  e.  Owen).  Mabonograin  is  a  combination  of  Mabon 
and  Evrain  —  names  of  two  magicians  in  the  Bel  Inconnu.  Cp., 
too,  E.  Philipot,  "Un  episode  d'Erec  et  Enide,  la  Joie  de  la  Cour", 
Romania,  XXV,  258ff.  (1896)  and  W.  H.  Scliofield,  Studies  in  the 
Libeaus  Desconus,  pp.  124  ff. 

17  Cp.  the  examples  of  "druidic  mist"  (walls  of  air  from  which 
there  is  no  exit)  cited  from  Celtic  stories  by  Miss  Paton,  Fairy  Mytho- 
logy, p.  84,  note  3.  Foerster,  Erec\  p.  XXIH  (Halle,  1909),  on  the 
other  hand,  maintains  that  we  have  here  merely  a  variant  of  the 
marchenmotiv  diffused  all  over  the  continent  of  Europe  of  the  deliverance 
of  a  maiden  held  in  captivity  by  a  giant.  According  to  Foerster, 
Chretien  again  used   this  motif  in   the   Yvain. 


110  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

at  the  beginning  of  the  romance  reminds  one  irresistibly  of  the 
marvellous  white  doe  in  Guigemar,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is, 
no  doubt,  of  Celtic  origin.  On  the  other  hand,  the  principal  motif 
of  the  poem,  the  Verliegen  (to  use  a  convenient  German  term) 
of  the  hero  —  that  is,  the  way  in  which,  through  uxoriousness, 
Erec  neglects  deeds  of  valor  and  gives  himself  up  to  love,  so  that 
his  decline  in  knightly  prowess  becomes  a  matter  of  general  re- 
proach, and,  at  length,  of  sorrow,  even  to  the  young  wife  herself  — 
bears  on  its  face  the  marks  of  its  French  origin.  Spurred  by  the 
grief  of  his  wife,  the  hero,  though  angry  at  the  implied  reproach, 
arouses  himself  from  his  sloth  and  redeems  his  reputation,  just 
as  a  young  French  knight  of  the  twelfth  century  doubtless  would 
have  done,  when  touched  in  the  point  of  honour.  The  wife  en- 
dures patiently  the  tribulations  to  which  his  wounded  vanity  sub- 
jects her  and  in  the  end  her  love  triumphs  —  a  motif  that  recalls 
the  Patient  Griselda  of  Chaucer's  Clerk's  Tale.  There  is  nothing 
Celtic  in  the  conception,  and,  considering  that  it  is  intimately 
interwoven  with  another  motif  that  is  manifestly  French  —  namely, 
that  of  Verliegen  —  there  seems  to  be  no  reason  for  ascribing  to 
it  a  Celtic  origin.  The  same  is  true  of  the  sparrow-hawk  incident 
in  the  earlier  part  of  the  romance,  in  which  the  bird  is  the  prize 
of  beauty  which  each  knight  endeavors  to  win  for  his  lady  — 
also,  of  the  kiss  of  the  most  beautiful  girl  at  Arthur's  court, 
which  is  to  reward  success  in  the  chase  of  the  white  stag.  These 
incidents  exhaust  the  motifs  of  the  romance,  for  the  combats  with 
robbers  and  chance  knights,  like  Guivret  le  Petit,  of  which  there 
are  many,  have  no  significance. 

If  the  above  outline  of  the  sources  of  Erec  et  Enide  is  correct, 
the  poem  owes  little,  after  all,  to  Celtic  models.  It  is  merely  the 
Arthurian  setting,  the  nomenclature,  the  Joie  de  la  Cour  episode, 
and  a  detail  here  and  there  that  we  may  ascribe  to  this  origin. 
The  novelty  consists  in  the  happy  selection  of  incidents,  in  the 
elegance  of  style,  in  the  idealized  pictures  of  chivalry,  with  its 
refinement  of  manners  and  its  courage  enlisted  in  the  service  of 
beauty.  But  just  as  the  direction  of  Shakespeare's  art  at  the 
beginning  of  his  career  is  determined  in  a  considerable  measure 
by  Marlowe  and  Lyly,  so  Chretien,  too,  has  had  his  precursors  — 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  111 

in  the  authors  of  the  romances  on  subjects  of  classical  antiquity, 
as  we  have  already  said,  the  Roman  d' Alexandre,  Roman  de 
Thebes,  Eneas,  Roman  de  Troie.  The  dates  of  these  works  are  not 
fixed  precisely,  but  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that  the 
composition  of  the  last  three  fell  within  the  ten  or  fifteen  years 
preceding  the  composition  of  Erec.  In  this  group  of  romances 
we  already  have  the  effort  to  depict  the  new  ideals  of  courtesy 
and  chivalry,  so  that  Eneas  and  Dido,  Achilles  and  Polyxena,  are 
twelfth  century  knights  and  ladies.  One  can  observe  the  influence 
of  these  works  on  Chretien  even  in  matters  of  phrasing  and  tech- 
nique,18 and  besides,  the  length  of  his  romances  was,  no  doubt, 
approximately  determined  by  the  example  of  the  Thebes  and  Eneas. 
But  since,  in  questions  of  art,  sentiment,  form,  and  style  are  even 
more  important  than  subject-matter,  it  is,  after  all,  the  debt  of  the 
French  poet  to  these  predecessors  rather  than  his  meagre  and  un- 
certain borrowings  from  Celtic  tradition  that  needs  to  be  emphasi- 
zed. The  full  force  of  these  models  —  the  romances  of  antiquity  — 
did  not  make  itself  felt,  however,  in  the  Erec.  As  far  as  the 
refinements  of  life  are  concerned  —  rich  and  brilliant  externals, 
careful  etiquette  and  polished  manners  —  these  are  already  given 
prominence  in  Chretien's  first  extant  romance;  but  he  has  not 
yet  accepted  love  as  the  all-dominating  factor  in  human  life,  in 
the  spirit  of  the  amour  courtois,  which  had  already  touched  the 
Eneas  and  Troie,  in  particular.  In  his  subsequent  romances  this 
fashionable  conception  of  the  relations  of  the  sexes  —  doubtless 
through  the  influence  of  his  patroness  —  was  destined  to  impose 


18  This  has  been  convincingly  set  forth  by  M.  Wilmotte,  If evo- 
lution du  roman  frangais  aux  environs  de  1150,  Brussels,  1903, 
and  F.  M.  Warren,  "Some  Features  of  Style  in  Early  French  Narrative 
Poetry",  MPh.,  Ill,  179ff.  (1905),  513ff.  (1906).  IV,  655 ff.  (1907). 

For  the  general  influence  of  the  romances  of  antiquity  on  sub- 
sequent literature,  including  Chretien,  see,  besides  Foerster's  Chretien 
Worterbuch,  pp.  33  ff.,  and  Faral's  oft-quoted  book,  the  following 
Grottingen  dissertations:  R.  Witte:  Der  Einfiufi  von  Benoits  Roman 
de  Troie  auf  die  altfranzosische  Literatur  (1904),  A.  Dre&ler,  Der 
Einfiufi  des  altfranzosischen  Eneasromanes  auf  die  altfranzosische 
Literatur  (1907)  and  G.  Otto,  Der  Einfiufi  des  Roman  de  Thebes 
auf  die  altfranzosische  Literatur  (1909). 


112  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

itself  upon  the  different  love-stories  that  he  dealt  with,  until  in 
the  Perceval  he  set  his  hero  a  new  aim,  and  sexual  passion,  now 
subordinate  in  his  scheme,  strips  itself  again  of  ephemeral  con- 
ventions.19 

Let  us  examine  now  the  manner  in  which  Chretien  composed 
his  romances.20 

The  plan  and  the  main  idea  of  each  romance  are  his  own. 
He  makes  up  his  narrative  by  combining  motifs  which  he  derived 
from  earlier  sources,  in  some  instances,  using  episodes  drawn  from 
such  sources  to  embellish  or  lengthen  out  the  story  which  is  the 
basis  of  his  work.  One  may  question  whether  a  single  fundamen- 
tal idea21  runs  through  the  whole  of  the  Erec  or  the  Yvain  or 
the  Perceval,  but  otherwise  the  above  is,  probably,  an  accurate 
statement  of  the  manner  in  which  these  works  were  composed. 


19  Myrrlia  Borodine  (now  Mme.  Lot-Borodine)  in  her  important 
study,  La  femme  et  V amour  au  Xlfe  siecle  d'aprhs  les  poemes  de 
Chretien  de  Troyes,  (Paris,  1909)  distinguishes  three  stages  in  Chretien's 
development  in  his  treatment  of  love:  1.  Erec:  the  ideal  of  active 
knighthood  (V ideal  chevaleresque)  is  stronger  than  love.  2.  Cliges, 
Lancelot,  Yvain:  love  is  the  sovereign  power.  3.  Perceval:  the  re-, 
ligious  ideal  is  stronger  than  love.  If  one  remembers  that  Chretien's 
religious  feeling  had  no  great  depth,  these  divisions  may  be  accepted 
as  valid. 

Foerster,  Chretien  WB,  p.  55*,  has  observed  that  the  Erec 
resembles  the  chansons  de  geste  not  only  in  the  view  of  woman's 
subordination  to  man,  but  in  literary  technique  and  in  its  outbreak 
against  the  conteurs  —  moreover,  that  it  contains  a  number  of  allusions 
to  various  heroes  of  these  works. 

80  The  views  on  this  subject  which  I  adopt  in  this  place  are, 
in  the  main,    those  of  W.  Foerster,   Yvain,   pp.  XXI ff.  (Halle,  1913). 

91  Grundidee  is  Foerster's  word.  He  regards  Chretien's  ro- 
mances as  Thesenromane.  Cp.  Chretien  Wbrterbuch,  pp.  43*ff. 
Foerster,  moreover,  minimizes,  perhaps,  even  more  than  is  due  the 
Celtic  element  in  the  poet's  works.  To  be  sure,  in  my  opinion,  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe  that  this  element  was  at  all  large.  For  an 
argument  —  in  the  main,  correct  —  to  the  effect  that  Chretien's 
object  in  composing  his  romances  was  to  interest  by  his  narrative, 
not  to  illustrate  a  thesis,  see  W.  Kiichler,  „Uber  den  sentimentalen  Ge- 
halt  der  Haupthandlung  in  Crestien's  Erec  und  Ivainff,  Zs.  f.  rom. 
Ph.,  XL,  83ff.  (1919). 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  113 

That  this  was  the  mode  of  their  composition,  indeed,  seems 
clear  from  the  next  of  the  series  —  namely,  the  Cliges,  for  here 
the  principal  element  in  the  story  is  a  familiar  one  and  we  can 
observe  how  the  poet  has  united  it  with  other  material  in  order 
to  secure  the  requisite  length  for  his  work.  To  elucidate  his  method, 
it  will  be  necessary  to  outline  briefly  the  narrative  of  the  ro- 
mance. The  poem  falls  into  two  unequal  divisions:  1.  The  story 
of  the  hero's  parents.  2.  The  hero's  own  story.  It  contains  6784 
lines,  of  which  2382  are  given  to  the  story  of  the  parents,  the 
remainder  to  the  hero's,  except  about  300  lines,  which  serve  as 
a  connecting  link  between  the  two.  As  was  said  above,  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  no  part  of  this  romance  has  any  genuine  connection 
with  the  matiere  de  Bretagne  and  the  Arthurian  affiliation  which 
Chretien  gives  it  is  of  the  most  artificial  kind.  First  as  to  the 
story  of  the  parents:  The  father,  Alexander,  is  a  prince  of  Con- 
stantinople, who,  on  account  of  Arthur's  fame,  journeys  to  Bri- 
tain to  receive  from  the  great  king  the  order  of  knighthood.  Ar- 
thur goes  to  Brittany  and  leaves  Count  Engres  regent  of  his  king- 
dom. On  the  voyage  he  is  accompanied  by  Alexander  and  his  niece, 
Soredamors,  who  fall  in  love  with  one  another,  but  fear  to  declare 
their  mutual  passion.  But  Engres,  like  Mordred  in  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth,  from  whom  he  is  evidently  imitated,22  endeavors  to 
seize  the  kingdom  in  Arthur's  absence,  so  that  Arthur  is  compelled 
to  return.  He  besieges  the  faithless  Engres  at  Windsor.  Finally, 
it  is  Alexander  who  by  a  ruse  gains  possession  of  the  castle  for 
the  king.  In  the  meanwhile,  he  had  often  been  thrown  with  his 
lady-love  in  the  court-circle  of  Guinevere,  who  guesses  the  secret 
of  the  lovers.  She  brings  about  the  long-delayed  declaration,  and 
they  marry.  Cliges,  the  hero  of  the  story,  is  the  fruit  of  their 
union.  This  ends  the  first  division  of  the  poem,  and  next  comes 
the  connecting  link. 

During   the  absence  of  Alexander  from  Constantinople  his 


29  Cp.  Bruce's  edition  of  the  Mort  Artu,  p.  287  (Halle,  1910). 
Cp.  also,  Annette  B.  Hopkins,  The  Influence  of  Wace  on  the  Ar- 
thurian Romances  of  Crestien  de  Troies,  p.  35  (University  of 
Chicago  dissertation,  1913).  Curiously,  Chretien  does  not  mention 
Mordred  directly  in  any  of  his  works. 


114  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

father,  the  emperor,  has  died  and  a  younger  son,  Alis,  has  as- 
cended the  throne,  having  received  false  intelligence  of  his  brother's 
death.  The  latter  now  comes  to  Constantinople  and  makes  a  com- 
pact with  Alis  by  which  Alis  is  to  retain  the  imperial  title,  but 
he  is  to  be  the  real  ruler.  Moreover,  Alis  agrees  not  to  marry, 
so  that  Cliges  may  inherit  the  throne.  Before  his  death  Cliges's 
father  urges  his  son  to  test  his  knighthood  at  Arthur's  court  by 
encounters  with  the  best  knights  there  —  especially  Gawain.  Both 
father  and  mother  die.  Now  follows  the  second  and  main  division 
of  the  poem. 

Alis  breaks  his  promise  and  carries  off  by  force  as  his  bride 
Fenice,23  the  daughter  of  the  German  emperor,  who  had  been 
engaged  to  a  Saxon  prince.  But  Fenice  and  Cliges  fall  in  love 
with  one  another.  Fenice  appeals  for  aid  to  her  nurse,  Thessala, 
who  saves  her  from  the  consummation  of  her  marriage  with  Alis 
by  giving  the  husband  a  magic  drink  that  deludes  him  into  belie- 
ving that  he  has  consummated  it,  when  he  has  not.  On  the  way 
home  Cliges  confirms  his  hold  on  his  lady-love's  affections  by 
defending  her  from  the  Saxon  prince  who  tries  to  recover  his 
betrothed. 

The  hero  now  carries  out  his  promise  to  his  father  by  going 
to  Arthur's  court  and  measuring  himself  there  in  tourneys  with 
the  greatest  knights.24  He  distinguishes  himself,  but  love  in  time 
drives  him  back  to  Constantinople.  Here  the  lovers  again  avail 
themselves  of  Thessala's  magic  arts,  and  it  is  agreed  that,  to  elude 
her  husband,  Fenice  is  to  take  a  magic  potion  which  will  throw 
her  into  a  death-like  trance.  According  to  their  anticipations,  she 
is  carried  out  as  dead  to  her  grave.  Certain  skilled  physicians 
from  Salerno  see  through  the  deceit,  but  they  are  slain  and  the 
girl  is  buried.    Her  lover  evades  the  watch  and  brings  Fenice  into 


23 


This  name  is,  doubtless,  Greek  Phoinike,  although,  G.  Cohen, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXV2,  146,  derives  it  from  Macedonian 
Pherenike  (=  Berenike).  The  Greek  names  in  the  romance  are 
classical,  rather  than  Byzantine  in  origin.  Cp.  Krumbacher's  com- 
munication to  Foerster  in  the  latter's  Cliges9,  p.  XXXVII. 

24  We  have  here  in  the  tournament,  lasting  four  days,  a  variant 
of  the  widespread  "three  days'  tournament  motif". 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  115 

a  tower,  where  she  is  restored  to  life  by  her  nurse.  Here  they 
live  for  months  tagether.  A  new  trouble,  however,  awaits  them,  for 
they  are  detected  by  a  young  knight,  named  Bertram.  Nevertheless, 
they  escape  to  Arthur's  court,  and  after  a  time,  on  the  death  of  Alis, 
they  return  to  Constantinople  and  reign  there  for  the  rest  of  their 
lives. 

The  kernel  of  this  romance  is  the  love-affair  of  Cliges  and 
Fenice,  including  the  deceits  which  it  involves  to  defeat  the  con- 
summation of  the  latter's  marriage  with  the  uncle  of  Cliges  and 
to  bring  about  the  union  of  the  lovers-  All  the  rest  is  secondary 
and,  for  the  most  part,  as  is  obvious,  added  merely  to  give  variety 
to  the  poem.  Now  we  have  here  in  this  main  story  merely  an  adap- 
tation of  the  oriental  motif  of  the  wife  who  feigns  death  in  order 
to  deceive  her  husband  for  the  sake  of  her  lover.25  In  what  is, 
perhaps,  the  earliest  of  its  known  forms,  the  Solomon  and  Marcolf 
tale,  it  is  the  wife  of  Solomon  who  practises  the  deceit.  Though 
not  of  identical  origin,  the  story  is  similar  to  that  which  is  fa- 
miliar to  all  the  world  in  Shakespeare's  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  romance  Chretien  tells  us  that  he 
derived  his  story  from  a  book  which  belonged  to  the  library  of 
the  church  of  Saint-Pierre  de  Beauvais.  An  allusion  in  the  poem 
itself  shows  that  he  was  acquainted  with  the  Solomon  and  Marcolf 
tale,  but  his  version  of  the  motif  bears  so  close  a  resemblance  to 
that  which  is  preserved  in  the  thirteenth  century  prose  conti- 
nuation of  the  Seven  Sages,  called  Marque  de  Rome,  that  one  may 
reasonably  conclude  that  the  tale  which  he  found  in  the  above- 
mentioned  book  had  virtually  this  form.26  The  deluding  of  Alis 
by  Thessala's  magic  drink,  however,  has  no  parallel  in  the  oriental 


35  Cp.  Foerster,  Introd.  to  small  Cliges  (second  ed.),  XXXII  ff.  and 
G.  Paris,  Melanges,  309  ff. 

28  So  Foerster,  Cliges3,  pp.  XXXII ff.  (as  in  his  previous  editions) 
and  G.  Paris  Melanges,  p.  312.  W.  Golther,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt, 
XIII8,  7  (1891)  and  ibid.,  XXIV2,  7ff.  (1902),  expresses  the  opinion 
that  the  passage  in  the  Marque  de  Rome  is  derived  from  Cliges  and 
not  vice  versa,  but  see  on  this  subject  Foerster,  Cliges3,  p.  XXXIV 
(1910).  Besides,  in  his  Tristan  und  Isolde,  p.  213  (Leipzig,  1907) 
Golther  seems  to  have  retracted  his  earlier  opinion. 


116  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tale.  In  this  we  have  a  motif  imported  from  another  source27  — 
namely,  from  the  old  chanson  de  geste,  the  Enfances  Guillaume, 
where  the  delusion  is  the  effect  of  sorcery.  That  the  magic  drink 
should  be  substituted  for  the  sorcery  of  the  old  poem  is  plainly 
due  to  the  influence  of  the  Tristan  story,  which  was  occupying 
at  this  time  so  large  a  place  in  Chretien's  mind. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  by  Professor  Foerster  and  others28 


27  Cp.  G.  Paris,  Melanges,  p.  293. 

28  Foerster  was  the  first  to  advance  the  theory  that  Cliges  was 
composed  as  an  Anti-Tristan,  viz.,  in  the  Introduction  to  his  small 
Cliges  (1901).  He  repeated  it  in  subsequent  editions.  Cp.  the  third 
(final)  edition  (1910),  pp.  XLVIff.  The  theory  was  accepted  by  Golther, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lilt.,  XXIV2,  7ff.  (1902)  —  see,  also,  his  Tristan 
und  Isolde,  pp.  21  Iff.  (Leipzig,  1907)  and  A.  G.  van  Hamel,  "Cliges 
et  Tristan",  Romania,  XXXIII,  465  ff.  (1904).  G.  Paris  also  accepted 
it,  but  with  the  modification  indicated  in  the  the  text  above.  See  his 
fourth  Cliges  article,  Journal  des  Savants  for  August,  1902,  pp.  442 ff. 
(in  the  Melanges  reprint,  pp.  288  ff.).  For  a  reply  to  Paris,  cp.  Foerster, 
op.  cit.f  p.  LIII,  note  2. 

In  his  "Randglossen  zum  Athisroman",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXVI, 
727  ff.  (1912),  Foerster  finds,  also,  strong  resemblances  between  this 
famous  tale  of  friendship  (especially,  in  Part  II  of  the  text  of  the 
Tours  MS.)  and  Cliges.  He  argues  that  Athis  et  Prophilias  contains' 
no  allusion  to  Arthur  or  Tristan,  and  no  marks  of  the  Minne  spirit 
—  hence  is  older  than  Cliges.  The  reasoning,  however,  to  my  mind, 
is,  by  no  means,  conclusive.  The  omission  of  allusions  to  Arthur  and 
Tristan  is  not  surprising  in  a  romance  based  on  Oriental  materials, 
and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  many  passages  in  the  romance  betray  the 
new  Minne  ideal,  e.  g.  11.  2805  ff.  (Athis  and  Gaite  fall  in  love 
with  each  other),  3360 ff.  (Athis's  monologue  on  his  love-sickness). 
Cp.  A.  Hilka's  edition,  I,  99,  118  (Dresden,  1912).  —  Op.  cit.,  p.  736, 
Foerster  thinks  that  Chretien's  Perceval,  1.  9336  (Baist's  edition,  1. 
7926)  shows,  also,  the  influence  of  Athis  et  Prophilias,  11.  2936  ff. 
In  each  we  have  a  discourse  extending  through  several  lines  on  the 
necessity  of  being  on  one's  guard  against  catching  cold  after  overheating. 
Prophilias  thinks  that  Athis,  owing  to  his  neglect  of  the  requisite 
precautions  in  such  cases,  has  taken  cold  and  is  "sanmellez",  and  the 
girl  in  the  Perceval  warns  Gawain,  "Que  maint  an  sane  mesle  an 
sont",  from  the  same  cause.  Foerster  declares  that  he  knows  of  no 
other  parallel  to  these  passages  in  Old  French  literature  and  that  only 
in  the  Athis  and  Prophilias  passage  is  the  meaning  of  sanmellez 
(sane  mesle)  clear.    The  two  passages  are  certainly  very  similar,  but, 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  117 

that  the  whole  character  of  the  Cliges,  indeed,  was  determined  by 
the  lost  Tristan  poem.  Not  only  have  we  here  the  introductory  ro- 
mance of  the  hero's  parents  told  in  full,  but  the  whole  poem  may 
be  regarded  as  an  Anti-Tristan,  or,  in  any  event,  as  a  pendant  of 
Tristan.29  The  manner  in  which  Iseult  in  the  older  story  yields 
herself  to  the  embraces  of  two  men,  her  husband  and  her  lover, 
was  shocking  to  the  sentiment  of  the  cultivated,  though  immoral, 
society  for  which  the  poet  was  writing,  so  that  the  Cliges  was 
manifestly  composed  by  way  of  polemic  against  the  coarser  views 
of  love  which  underlay  that  romance.  It  is  hardly  correct  to  as- 
sume30 that  our  poet  is  here  adopting  the  bourgeois  ideal,  which 
permits  the  union  of  lovers  only  through  the  marriage  ceremony. 
Such  an  ideal  would  have  had  but  little  attraction  for  Chretien's 
aristocratic  patrons  of  the  twelfth  century31  —  either  women  or 
men  —  and,  besides,  the  deceit  which  Fenice  practised  on  Alis, 
her  legitimate  husband,  and  her  subsequent  conduct  are  little  con- 


apart  from  the  unsettled  relative  date  of  the  two  romances,  the  simi- 
larity may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  both  authors  drew  independently 
from  contemporary  notions  concerning  the  physiological  process  in 
such  attacks. 

In  his  U  e"  volution  du  roman  francais  aux  environs  de  1150, 
p.  345,  M.  Wilmotte  states  that  Cliges  was  composed  manifestly  under 
the  influence  of  Gautier  d' Arras's  Eracle,  which,  like  Foerster,  he  dates 
(p.  337)  1164.  He  even  lists  pp.  351  ff.  (including  notes)  a  number 
of  verbal  coincidences  in  which,  as  he  thinks,  Cliges  shows  the  in- 
fluence of  Eracle.  It  is  difficult  to  say  how  far  their  common  classical 
sources  account  for  the  resemblances  of  situation  and  of  phrasing,  but 
Wilmotte's  argument  is  plausible.  —  W.  M.  Stevenson  assumes  in  his 
Der  Einflufi  des  Gautier  d 'Arras  auf  die  altfranzosische  Kunst- 
epik,  insbesondere  auf  den  Abenteuerroman,  p.  102  (Gottingen  diss. 
1910),  that  Gautier  and  Chretien  mutually  influenced  each  other.  This 
seems  very  likely. 

29  This  last  is  the  opinion  of  G.  Paris,  Melanges,  p.  293. 

30  So  Foerster,  Cliges*,  pp.  XXIXff. 

31  Andreas  Capellanus  ascribes  to  Chretien's  patroness,  Marie  de 
Champagne,  the  sentiment  "Amorem  non  posse  suas  inter  duos  conjugales 
extendere  vires",  (Trojel's  edition,  p.  133).  We  know,  too,  from  the 
author  of  the  Eracle  that  she  suggested  to  him  the  story  of  Athenais's 
adultery  in  Part  II  of  that  romance. 


118  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sonant  with  such  an  ideal.  To  be  sure,  the  heroine  frequently 
expresses  a  horror  of  being  associated  in  the  minds  of  the  people 
with  Iseult.  She  exhibits,  however,  no  repulsion  for  Iseult's  sin, 
but  merely  for  the  evil  reputation  which  the  detection  of  her  guilt 
had  given  the  latter  throughout  the  world.32 

This  main  story  Chretien  has  complicated  and  retarded  by 
the  episode  of  the  hero's  visit  to  Arthur's  court,  the  most  interesting 
feature  of  which  is  the  well-known  Three  Tournament  motif  where 
the  knight,  incognito,  wins  the  tournament  on  three  successive 
days,  appearing  each  day  in  a  new  colour  —  red,  white,  and  black 
—  still  further,  by  the  final  episode,  borrowed  from  the  Tristan, 
in  which  Bertram  detects  the  lovers  together  in  an  orchard  —  an 
incident  which  is  common  in  tales  of  Eastern  origin. 

No  less  important,  however,  for  an  insight  into  our  poet's 
methods  of  composition  is  the  first  division  of  the  Cliges  —  the 
story  of  the  love  of  the  hero's  parents.  As  already  observed,  it 
was  obviously  suggested  by  the  corresponding  division  of  Chre- 
tien's Tristan  original  —  the  story  of  the  love  of  Rivalin  and 
Blanchefleur,  the  parents  of  Tristan;  but  the  correspondence  does 
not  extend  to  details  —  at  least,  to  the  more  important  features. 
Paris  has  justly  noted  the  inferiority  of  the  imitation  to  the  ori^- 
ginal  in  the  essential  matter  of  its  connection  with  the  main  theme 
of  the  romance.  The  whole  life  of  Tristan  is  determined  by  the 
tragical  fate  of  Rivalin  and  Blanchefleur,  whereas  there  is  no 
such  relation  between  the  stories  of  Cliges  and  his  parents.  In 
this  the  Cliges,  then,  exhibits  a  manifest  want  of  unity. 

Altogether  the  connection  between  the  first  and  second  di- 
vision of  the  narrative  is  full  of  blunders  in  composition.33  But 
the  first  division  is,  itself,  also  composite.  For  the  rest,  this  first 
division  contains  a  rather  commonplace  story  of  love  between  two 
young  people  of  high  rank.  Doubtless,  the  fact  that  their  love- 
affair  begins  at  sea  is  a  pale  reflection  of  the  same  feature  of 
the  Tristan  romance  with  the  love  potion  left  out;  and  similarly 
with  some  other  features.    The  whole  story,  however,   such  as  it 


So  (t.  Paris,  loc.  cit. 

G.  Paris  has  enumerated  them,  Melanges,  p.  285. 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  119 

is,  is  interwoven  with  a  supposed  episode  in  Arthur's  career,  ac- 
cording to  which  the  king  goes  abroad,  appoints  a  regent  in  his 
absence,  but  is  compelled  to  return,  because  of  the  treachery  of 
this  regent.  There  is  an  incident  somewhat  like  this  in  the  Tristan 
story,  but,  as  I  have  noted  above,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
the  real  original  which  Chretien  here  had  in  mind  was  Mordred's 
treachery  to  Arthur,  under  similar  circumstances,  as  related  in 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  Historia  and  Wace's  Brut.  Apart  from 
the  incidents,  the  monologues  on  the  subject  of  love  constitute 
a  marked  feature  of  this  first  division  of  the  Cliges,  but  these, 
too,  have  their  originals;  they  were  suggested  by  the  monologues 
of  the  Roman  de  Troie  and  Eneas  —  especially  the  latter  —  and 
are  ultimately  descended  from  Ovid  and  Virgil34  —  for  example, 
the  monologues  of  Byblis  and  Myrrha  in  the  Metamorphoses  and 
Dido's  speeches  in  the  Aeneid,  which,  of  course  Chretien  also  knew 
at  first  hand.35 

It  will  be  observed  that  virtually  every  incident  even  of  this 
first  division  of  the  poem  can  be  traced  to  its  source.  It  approaches, 
however,  close  to  invention  —  certainly  as  near  to  invention  as  we 
can  expect  of  a  poet  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  of  most  poets  of 
modern  times  —  that  is  to  say,  Chretien,  has  taken  widely  sepa- 
rated details  and  brought  them  into  a  new  combination,  so  as  to 
produce  the  effect  of  originality.  That  the  total  impression  in 
this  case  is  not  particularly  striking  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 


34 


Cp.,  especially,  E.  Faral:  Becherches  sur  les  sources  latines 
des  contes  et  romans  courtois  du  moyen  age,  pp.  73  ff.  (Paris,  1913). 

36  The  Greek  names  of  certain  characters  have  led  some  scholars 
to  imagine  that  Chretien  used  a  lost  Greek  source  for  this  division 
of  his  romance.  Cp.  E.  Herzog,  Liter aturblatt,  XXV,  19  (1904). 
But  these  names,  insofar  as  they  are  genuine,  are  derived  from  Ovid 
and  the  Old  French  romances  of  antiquity.  Cp.  Foerster's  Cliges*, 
p.  XXXVIII  (Halle,  1910).  In  his  "Byzantinisch-Geschichtliches  im 
Cliges  und  Yvain",  Zs.  /.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXII,  400ff.  (1908),  F.  Sette- 
gast  sees  in  the  Byzantine  element  of  Cliges  a  reflex  of  the  history 
of  the  Byzantine  emperor  Isaac  I  (1057  — 1059)  and,  especially,  of  his 
two  nephews,  Isaac  and  Alexios  I.  The  latter  reigned  1081  — 1118 
and  was  well-known  in  the  West,  because  of  his  relations  to  the  First 
Crusade.    On  this  fanciful  hypothesis  see  Foerster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  XXXVIf. 


120  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

elements  combined  do  not  individually  possess  any  especial  in- 
terest —  far  less,  for  instance,  than  attaches  to  the  ancient  story 
that  underlies  the  second  division. 

It  cannot  be  too  strongly  emphasized  that  the  Cliges  con- 
stitutes the  proper  starting-point  for  any  study  of  Chretien's  rela- 
tion to  his  sources.36  We  can  analyze  with  certainty  his  prin- 
ciples of  composition  in  the  case  of  this  poem,  whose  sources  can 
be  fixed,  one  may  say,  even  in  the  minutest  details.  Now  we 
may  be  reasonably  sure  that  these  principles  were  essentially  the 
same  in  the  poems  whose  sources  we  are  unable  to  fix  —  at  any  rate, 
so  exactly.  And  this  is  substantially  true,  whether  we  assume 
his  originals  to  have  been  mainly  Celtic  or  not.  The  analogy  of 
Cliges  then  certainly  tells  against  the  theory37  as  to  a  uniform 
Celtic  tale's  forming  the  basis  of  the  Yvain.  The  narrative  of 
that  romance  is  also  obviously  a  composite  one  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  fit  it  into  the  scheme  of  some  hypothetical  Irish  analogue. 
We  have  already  considered  the  question  of  the  sources  of 
the  Yvain  in  another  connection  and  the  same  question  in  the 
case  of  the  Lancelot  and  Perceval  will  be  dealt  with  when  we  come 
to  trace  the  history  of  these  heroes  in  romance.  In  general,  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  here  that  the  sources  are,  in  each  instance,  com-" 
posite  and  that  the  writer  exercises  a  certain  amount  of  invention 
in  combining  originally  disparate  elements  —  moreover,  that  these 
elements  are  only  partly  Celtic- 
Taken  altogether,  Chretien  is  undoubtedly  the  best  of  the 
French  authors  of  metrical  romances  that  deal  with  the  matiere 


36 


This  has  been  stressed  by  A.  G.  van  Hamel,  Romania,  XXXIII, 
486  (1904),  and  in  his  "Bydrage  tot  de  vergelijking  van  Cliges  en 
Tristan",  Taal  en  Letter  en,  XIV,  193  ff.  (Leiden,  1904)  —  especially, 
p.  211.  On  the  other  hand,  Nitze,  Romania,  XLIV,  33  (1915)  ob- 
jects that  what  is  true  of  Cliges  is  not  necessarily  true  of  the  rest 
—  especially,  since  Cliges  is  a  combination  of  an  Oriental  tale  with 
an  Arthurian  theme,  as  the  others  are  not.  The  last  point,  at  least, 
however,  is  of  no  weight,  for,  as  Faral,  pp.  41 8 f.,  has  observed,  the 
division  of  the  romances  into  four  groups  according  to  their  subject- 
matter  is  largely  artificial. 

37  A.   C.  L.  Brown,    "The   Knight   of   the   Lion",    PMLA.,    XX, 
673  ff.  (1905). 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  121 

de  Bretagne.  In  saying  this,  however,  we  are  making  an  acknow- 
ledgement of  the  limitations  of  what  was  achieved  in  this  genre 
—  at  least,  in  France;  for  in  the  works  of  this  writer  there  is 
no  question  of  the  higher  imagination,  of  philosophical  insight 
into  the  riddles  of  existence,  of  "the  dower  of  spanning  wisdom", 
with  regard  to  either  character  or  the  conduct  of  life,  or  of  the 
magic  of  diction  and  phrase,  which  have  distinguished  the  represen- 
tative poets  of  many  other  ages.  His  imagery  is  confined  to  a  few 
similes  —  the  majority  of  which  are  of  a  purely  conventional 
kind  —  and  to  a  restricted,  though  somewhat  richer,  store  of 
metaphor.  His  "criticism  of  life"  is  merely  that  of  a  shrewd, 
alert,  man  of  the  world  of  his  time.  He  was  quite  contented  with 
the  feudal  society  in  which  he  moved  and  he  delighted  in  the 
bustle  and  splendor  of  its  festivities,  its  pageantry,  and  its  tourna- 
ments. Within  the  bounds  of  this  society,  apart  from  the  externals 
just  mentioned,  the  code  of  chivalry  and  the  problems  of  the  rela- 
tions of  the  sexes  —  the  latter  especially  in  the  new  form  which 
these  problems  had  assumed  under  the  system  of  the  amour  cour- 
tois  —  were  the  things  that  most  attracted  him.  Moreover,  living 
in  a  naive  age,  when  in  the  elementary  interests  and  emotions  the 
grown  man  was  nearer  to  the  child  than  at  present,  he  was  keenly 
susceptible  to  the  spell  of  the  marvellous,  as  were  his  contempo- 
raries generally.  Consequently,  the  setting  which  he  gives  to  the 
life  of  chivalry  and  to  his  solution  of  the  above-mentioned  pro- 
blems is  taken  largely  from  the  folk-tales  of  Celtic  regions  and  of 
the  Orient,  where  such  fancies  most  abounded,  with  occasional 
admixture  of  classical  motifs.  In  the  case  of  the  Perceval,  per- 
haps, he  did  not  understand  the  full  significance  of  the  materials 
that  he  drew  from  his  sources,  but,  in  general,  the  combination  of 
the  various  elements  of  content  and  setting  in  his  poems  produces 
on  the  reader  an  effect  of  harmonious  unity,  and  the  creation  of 
this  new  world  in  which  mediaeval  barons  and  ladies  jostle  fairies 
and  even  stranger  Otherworld  figures  is  no  mean  achievement.    _. 

Since  love  is  the  dominant  theme  of  Chretien's  romances, 
it  is  natural  that  he  should  display  most  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart  in  his  characterizations  of  women.  We  are  wearied  occasion- 
ally, it  is  true,  with  the  hair-splitting  analyses  of  amorous  emo- 


122  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tions  in  the  lovers'  soliloquies  of  his  romances  and  with  the  conceits 
which  such  analyses  engender,  but  the  patient  loyalty  of  Enid,  the, 
sovereign  haughtiness  of  Guinevere  and  the  piquant  fickleness  of 
Laudine  in  their  relations  with  their  lovers  or  husbands  are  depic- 
ted with  much  truth  to  nature  and  with  no  little  charm,  and, 
in  the  last-named  case,  also,  with  an  effective  touch  of  malice. 

It  is  particularly  however,  as  a  born  conteur  that  Chretien 
can  claim  a  notable  place  among  the  poets  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In 
telling  a  story  his  sparkling  vivacity  never  fails  him,  and,  as  a 
German  critic  has  happily  said,  he  makes  the  impression  of  a 
juggler  who  can  shake  couplets  out  of  his  sleeve  as  long  as  he 
pleases.  He,  himself,  thoroughly  enjoys  telling  his  tale  and  his 
enjoyment  is  consequently  contagious/  We  have  seen  above  that 
his  work  is  marred  in  some  instances  by  serious  faults  of  construc- 
tion; but  the  same  thing  is  true  of  Marmion  and  Rokeby  —  yet, 
in  spite  of  these  defects,  Scott  is,  perhaps,  our  greatest  English 
master  of  narrative  poetry.  Chretien,  of  course,  paints  on  no  such 
broad  canvases  and  with  no  such  variety  of  poetical  resources  as 
the  nineteenth  century  writer.  With  greater  vividness  and  agre- 
ment,  nevertheless,  than  any  other  poet  of  the  Middle  Ages,  he  has 
preserved  for  us,  at  least,  the  outward  lineaments  of  the  society 
which  Scott  idealized.  After  all,  however,  his  most  memorable 
services  to  the  great  cause  of  poetry,  perhaps,  were  in  stimulating 
immeasurably  the  imagination  of  his  contemporaries  —  for  the  vast 
forest  of  mediaeval  Arthurian  romance  sprang  mainly  from  the 
seeds  of  his  sowing  —  and  in  enriching  the  whole  poetic  tradition 
of  Europe  with  new  and  beautiful  themes  on  which  greater  men 
than  himself  have  exercised  their  genius,  from  the  age  immediately 
succeeding  his  own  down  to  that  of  Tennyson  and  Wagner. 

During  the  life-time  of  Chretien  there  were  other  romance- 
writers  like  Gautier  d'Arras,  author  of  Eracle  and  Ille  and  Galeron, 
which,  though  similar  in  the  most  essential  respects,  cannot  be 
classed  as  Arthurian  romances,  inasmuch  as  Arthur  and  his  knights 
do  not  figure  in  them.  No  one,  however,  but  Chretien,  during 
these  years,  as  far  as  the  extant  works  show,  made  it  his  object 
to  embody  the  ideals  of  contemporary  feudal  society  in  romances 
connected   with  Arthur.38      Thomas's  Tristan  was  written   about 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  123 

1170  and  those  critics  are  probably  right  who  see  in  it  here  and 
there  the  influence  of  Chretien  rather  than  vice  versa,39  but,  apart 
from  its  dependence  on  the  lost  Tristan  romance,  the  spirit  of  this 
work  is  somewhat  different  from  Chretien's.  The  new  ideals  of 
chivalry  occupy  here  a  subordinate  place  in  comparison  with  the 
passion  of  the  lovers  and  the  subterfuges  to  which  they  resort 
in  the  fulfilment  of  that  passion.  The  Beroul  Tristan  fragments 
are,  at  least  in  the  main,  later  than  Chretien,  but  they  belong,  be- 
sides, to  the  tradition  of  the  popular  minstrels  and  are  on  a  diffe- 
rent level  from  the  poems  we  are  dealing  with. 

It  may  be  that  the  supremacy  of  Chretien  during  his  life- 
time deterred  others  from  trying  their  hand  in  a  genre  which  he 
had  made  his  own.  In  any  event,  he  was  the  object  of  admiration 
for  the  generations  that  immediately  succeeded  him.  The  fre- 
quent allusions  to  his  works  prove  this,  but  even  more  decisively 
the  variety  of  influences  which  they  exercised  on  subsequent  lite- 
rature. In  the  first  place,  we  have  from  the  closing  years  of  the 
twelfth  century  and  the  first  part  of  the  thirteenth  many  bio- 
graphical and  episodical  romances  which  continue  the  genre.  So, 
for  instance,  Li  Biaus  Descouneus  (Le  Bel  Inconnu)*0  by  Renaud 
de  Beaujeu,  on  the  theme  which  has  also  been  treated  in  the  middle 
English  romance,  Libeaus  Desconus  —  itself  based,  of  course,  on 
some  lost  French  original  —  that  is  to  say,  the  theme  of  the  un- 
known young  knight  who  claims  the  first  adventure  after  his  arri- 
val at  Arthur's  court,  astonishes  the  girl  whose  champion  he  has 
been  made  by  his  acts  of  prowess,  visits  the  fairy  isle,  L'llle  d'Or, 
resists  its  temptations  and  abolishes  its  bad  customs,  delivers  the 
enchanted  princess  who  has  been  turned  into  a  serpent  by  venturing 
the  fier  baiser  (dangerous  kiss).  Similar  are  the  works  of  Raoul 
de  Houdenc,  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  show, 


38  On  the  probable  mutual  influence  which  Chretien  and  Gautier 
exerted  upon  each  other,  cp.  p.  117  note  28  above. 


39 


Cp.  M.  Wilmotte,  L' evolution  du  roman  frangais,  p.  67, 
and  Foerster,  Chretien  WB,  pp.  65  *f.,  as  against  G.  Paris,  Melanges, 
p.  282. 

*°  For  editions  of  this  and  the  other  metrical  romances  mentioned 
in  this  chapter,  cp.  the  Bibliography  at  the  end  of  the  present  work. 


124  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

to  a  marked  degree,  the  influence  of  his  great  predecessor  —  the 
Meraugis  de  Portlesguez,  where  the  heroine,  Lidoine,  exemplifies 
the  idea  that  courtesy  —  the  perfection  of  courtly  breeding  —  is 
superior  to  mere  beauty,  and  the  Vengeance  de  Raguidel,  which  re- 
counts the  vengeance  that  Gawain  took  for  a  knight  named  Ra- 
guidel, who  was  slain  before  the  action  of  the  romance  begins. 
These  are  only  a  few  of  those  that  have  survived.  The  list  drawn 
up  by  Gaston  Paris41  includes  thirty-seven  romances,  and  some 
additional  ones  have  come  to  light  since  the  publication  of  his 
treatise.  Even  now  (1921)  one  of  the  very  best  of  Paris's  list 
remains  unedited  —  namely,  Gliglois.  And  so  the  Arthurian  me- 
trical romance  drags  on  into  the  fourteenth  century  until  it  ex- 
pires with  the  Meliador  of  Froissart  in  the  second  half  of  that 
century.42 

The  influence  of  this  product  of  French  genius  outside  of 
France  is  well-known  to  all  the  world.  In  Germany,  before  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century,  we  have  in  the  Lanzelet  of  Ulrich  von 
Zatzikhoven  an  adaptation  from  a  French  romance,  and,  about 
the  same  time,  the  Erec  and  Iwein  of  Hartmann  von  der  Aue  — 
paraphrased,  of  course,  from  Chretien's  romances  of  the  same  names. 
Then  come  Gottfried  von  Strassburg's  adaptation  of  Thomas's 
Tristan  and  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach's  Parzival,  based,  according 
to  his  own  statement,  on  the  work  of  an  enigmatical  Kyot  —  a 
French  poet,  of  course.  Both  of  these  illustrious  writers  belong 
to  the  early  thirteenth  century  and  there  are  others  less  illustrious 
of  the  same  nation  who  about  the  same  time  drew  likewise  from 
the  vast  store-house  of  the  French  metrical  romances.  Especially 
to  be  noted  is  Heinrich  von  Tiirlin  (about  1220)  whose  Crone 
preserves  in  German  dress  much  lost  French  material  which  we 
know  only  from  this  poem.    The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  vast 


*l  At  the  beginning  of  the  Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France, 
XXX  (1888). 

42  For  references  to  Arthur  in  works  outside  of  the  Arthurian 
romances,  cp.  F.  L.  Critchlow,  "Arthur  in  Old  French  Poetry  not  of 
the  Breton  Cycle",  MPh.,  VI,  477  ff.  (1909).  The  author's  list, 
however,  is  by  no  means  exhaustive.  For  analyses  of  these  romances 
see  Part  V,  below. 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  125 

thirteenth  century  Dutch  compilation  in  short-rhymed  couplets 
called  the  Lancelot.*3  Its  87000  lines  (and  somewhat  more)  em- 
braces, besides  large  portions  of  the  prose-romances  of  the  Ar- 
thurian cycle,  more  than  one  metrical  romance  which  in  its  original 
French  form  has  perished. 

Owing  to  the  special  conditions  which  prevailed  in  England 
after  the  Norman  Conquest,  when  the  language  of  the  patron-class 
was  for  many  generations  French,  the  English  were  slow  in  adap- 
ting in  their  language  these  most  characteristic  reflections  of  the 
life  of  the  ruling  classes  in  the  Middle  Ages.  As  long  as  the 
language  of  those  classes  was  French,  there  was,  of  course,  no 
incentive  to  produce  English  versions  of  the  French  originals,  and 
when  at  last  there  was  such  an  incentive  in  the  growing  decline 
of  French  in  familiar  use  among  the  upper  classes,  these  poems 
belonged  to  a  past  age  and  no  longer  represented,  at  least  with 
such  perfection,  the  spirit  of  contemporary  society.  Perhaps,  this 
may  account  in  part,  at  least,  for  the  fact  that  the  Middle  English 
romances,  on  the  whole,  are  inferior  to  German  production  in  the 
same  genre;  for  the  latter,  it  will  be  recalled,  fell  at  the  end  of 
the  twelfth  century  and  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  —  that  is 
to  say,  it  was  coincident  with  all  but  the  first  period  of  production 
in  France  itself  and  so  was  a  vivid  representation  of  actual  con- 
temporary ideals.  It  is  significant  that  the  best  English  Arthu- 
rian romances  —  those  which  seem  addressed  to  the  more  cultured 
classes  and  not  to  rude  popular  audiences  —  belong  to  the  north  — 
the  most  backward  part  of  the  kingdom,  where  the  old  feudal 
ideals  and  the  literary  tastes  corresponding  were  least  changed. 
To  this  region  belongs  the  gem  of  the  English  romances,  Sir 
Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  which  was  composed  about  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  —  at  a  time  when  the  metrical 
romance  on  the  continent  was  utterly  decadent.  Notwithstanding 
the  impression  of  uncouthness  which  Middle  English  alliteration 
always  makes  on  the  modern  reader,  this  romance,  by  the  general 
verdict,  belongs  among  the  best  productions  of  the  Arthurian  muse 


48  Edited  by  W.  J.  A.  Jonckbloet,    2.  vols.     (The  Hague,  1846 
-1849). 


126  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

in  the  Middle  Ages.  It  is  safe  to  say,  too,  that  although  derived 
from  a  lost  French  original,  it  contains  a  larger  share  of  origi- 
nal invention  than  is  the  case  with  any  other  English  specimen 
of  the  genre.  A  similar  vigor  and  a  similar  uncouthness  mark 
the  alliterative  Morte  Arthure,  which  was  produced  in  the  same 
general  region.  It  is  a  pity  that  the  large  proportion  of  words 
of  French  and  Scandinavian  origin  in  this  romance  and  in  Sir 
Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight  that  time  has  rendered  obsolete 
should  have  rendered  these  fine  poems  sealed  books  to  all  but  pro- 
fessional students  at  the  present  day. 

The  earliest  Middle  English  metrical  romance  that  has  come 
down  to  us  is  the  King  Horn,  which  dates  from  the  middle  of 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  earliest  Middle  English  metrical 
romance  connected  with  the  Arthurian  cycle  is  the  Sir  Tristrem 
which  belongs  to  the  close  of  that  century.  The  latter  is  a  rude 
poem  in  stanzas  of  eleven  lines  and  it  was  composed  in  the  North- 
west of  Midland  England.  It  is  based  on  Thomas's  Tristan,  but, 
like  virtually  all  the  Middle  English  romances,  whether  Arthurian 
or  not,  it  condenses  the  original.  The  English  audiences  of  the 
time  were  evidently  unequal  to  the  task  of  appreciating  the  re- 
finements of  the  French  romances  and  the  poets  themselves  stood - 
on  a  lower  level  of  culture  than  the  authors  of  their  originals.44 

To  the  following  century,  however,  —  the  fourteenth  —  be- 
long the  great  bulk  of  the  English  metrical  romances,  including 
those  with  Arthurian  connections.  One  of  the  most  important 
of  these,  the  alliterative  Morte  Arthure,  which  is  often  assigned 
to  the  Scottish  knight,  Huchown  of  the  Awle  Ryale,  although  it 
more  likely  originated  in  Northern  England,  represents,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  rather  one  of  the  later  developments  of  the 
chronicles  in  verse  than  the  metrical  romance  proper,  as  we  have 
it  in  the  works  of  Chretien  and  his  followers.  Moreover,  a  large 
number  of  the  Middle  English  metrical  romances  are  derived  from 


44> 


)  It  has  been  contended  by  Bossert,  Kolbing  etc.  that  the 
English  poet  was  not  following  a  written  text,  but  was  merely  working 
up  in  his  own  language  the  narrative  of  Thomas,  as  he  recollected 
it  from  a  previous  reading  or  from  having  heard  it  read.  For  a  con- 
trary view,  cp.  Bedier's  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II,  87  f. 


Chretien  de  Troyes  and  his  Successors  127 

French  romances  in  prose  and  not  in  verse.  This  is  the  case  with 
the  stanzaic  Morte  Arthur  of  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century 
—  a  poem  of  much  naive  charm,  whose  ultimate  original  is  the 
great  French  prose  romance  of  the  early  thirteenth  century,  cal- 
led the  Mort  Artu,  (Mort  Artus,  Mort  d 'Arthur).*5  It  is  also 
the  case  with  the  Middle  English  poems  that  deal  with  the  Holy 
Grail  theme  —  namely  the  alliterative  Joseph  of  Arimathie  (Mid- 
land dialect  about  1350)  and  Lovelich's  Holy  Grail  (South  or 
South  Midland,  about  1480),  both  based  on  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  (Grand  St.  Graal)  —  one  of  the  great 
French  prose  romances  of  the  Vulgate  cycle.  It  is  the  case,  also, 
with  the  Arthour  and  Merlin  (end  of  thirteenth  century)  and  the 
Merlin  of  Lovelich,  the  fifteenth  century  poet,  both  of  which  are 
derived  from  the  Old  French  prose  Merlin  in  the  same  cycle  of 
the  prose  romances  as  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal.  So  too  with 
the  Scotch  Lancelot  of  the  Laik  of  the  late  fifteenth  century,  which 
merely  paraphrases  an  episode  of  the  famous  Lancelot  del  Lac  — 
the  prose  romance  of  the  early  thirteenth  century.  This  is  in- 
teresting as  the  latest  in  date  of  all  the  metrical  romances  com- 
posed in  Great  Britain. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  with  the  exception  of  the  stanzaic 
Morte  Arthur,  none  of  the  English  romances  in  verse  that  are 
based  on  French  romances  in  prose  rise  above  mediocrity.  Love- 
lich's works,  especially,  are  monuments  of  tediousness. 

But,  besides  the  English  Arthurian  romances  in  verse  which 
are  based  on  French  romances  in  prose,  we  have,  in  addition  to 
Sir  Trislrem,  a  number  of  others  which  are  based  on  French  ro- 
mances in  verse  and  which  are  markedly  superior  in  literary  qua- 
lity to  the  former.  First,  the  Sir  Perceval  of  Galles  which  is, 
probably,  a  mere  adaptation  of  Chretien's  Perceval 46)  —  then  the 
Libeaus  Desconus,  mentioned  above,  whose  lost  French  original 
was  closely  akin  to  the  Li  Biaus  Descouneus  of  Renaud  de  Beaujeu 
—  the  Yvain  and  Gawain,  an  adaptation  of  Chretien's  Yvain  — 
Sir  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight  (already  mentioned),  whose 
French  original  is  also  lost  —  the  Au/iters  of  Arthur,  made  up, 

46  Cp.  Part  IH,  below. 
46  Cp.  Part  II,  below. 


128  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

it  seems,  from  various  French  sources,  which  is  also  probably  true 
of  the  Avowing  of  Arthur,  preserved  in  the  same  MS.  and  appa- 
rently of  the  same  date.  All  of  the  romances  just  enumerated  were 
composed  in  the  North  Midland  or  Northern  districts  of  England 
during  the  fourteenth  century.  The  Scotch  Gologrus  and  Gawain, 
the  story  of  which  is  taken  from  the  continuation  of  Chretien's 
Perceval,  belongs  to  the  fifteenth  century.  Still  further,  five  brief 
romances,  hardly  more  than  ballads,  concerning  Gawain  have  been 
printed  by  Sir  Frederick  Madden  in  his  great  edition  of  the  ro- 
mances47 relating  to  that  hero  published  by  the  Bannatyne  Club, 
London,  1839.  If  we  add  in  conclusion  a  version  of  Marie  de 
France's  Lanval*8  and  the  brief  fragment  called  Arthur  which 
Dr.  Furnivall  published  in  the  second  issue  of  the  Early  English 
Text  Society,49  we  have  completed  the  list  of  the  Middle  English 
Arthurian  romances.  This  last  piece  is  a  very  condensed  narrative 
based  on  Geoffrey's  Historia. 

47  Sir  Gawayne:  a  collection  of  Ancient  Romance-Poems  by 
Scottish  and  English  Authors  relating  to  that  celebrated  Knight 
of  the  Bound  Table,  with  Introduction,  notes  and  a  glossary. 
London,   1839. 

For  everything  relating  I.,  xr-ca  poems  —  sources  etc.  —  cp. 
G.  L.  Kittredge,  A  Study  of  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight  (Boston, 
1914).  They  are  entitled  respectively,  (1)  The  Green  Knight  (fifteenth 
century),  which  is  derived  from  the  English  romance,  Sir  Gawain 
and  the  Green  Knight.  (2)  The  Turk  and  Gowin  (fifteenth  cen- 
tury). (3)  The  Jeaste  of  Syr  Gawayne  (fifteenth  century).  (4)  Syre 
Gawene  and  the  Carle  of  Carelyle  (fifteenth  century).  (5)  The 
Weddynge  of  Syr  Gawen  and  Dame  Ragnell  (fifteenth  century). 
Part  IV,  below,  I  have  discussed  the  use  which  Miss  Weston  makes 
of  these   poems    in   her  hypothesis  of  a   primitive  "Gawain-complex". 

48  Last  edited  by  Rudolf  Zimmermann  at  Konigsberg  in  Preufeen, 
1900.  For  previous  editions  and  literature  of  the  poem,  see  this  edition 
or  Miss  A.  H.  Billings's  A.  Guide  to  the  Middle  English  Metrical 
Romances,  pp.  144  ff.  (New  York,  1900).  The  author  was  Thomas 
Chestre  and  he  wrote  in  the  fourteenth  century  —  probably  the  first  half. 

49  Arthur,  a  short  sketch  of  his  life  and  history  in  English 
verse  of  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  copied  and  edited 
from  the  Marquis  of  Bath's  MS.  By  F.  J.  Furnivall.  E.  E.  T.  S. 
Original  Series,  no  2.  London  1864.  It  was  composed  about  1400 
in  the  Southern  dialect.  The  fragmentary  poem  (only  642  four-stressed 
lines)  is  based  on  one  of  the  Bruts. 


Chapter  IV. 
Merlin. 

It  is  only  in  the  writings  of  Welshmen  that  we  find  any 
trace  of  a  character  corresponding  to  Merlin  before  the  Arthurian 
romances.  As  has  been  said  above  more  than  once,  literary  re- 
cords from  mediaeval  Brittany  are  practically  non-existent  and 
the  Breton  ballads  about  Marzin  or  Merlin  which  in  the  last  cen- 
tury La  Villemarque  published  in  his  Barzaz-Breiz  and  Myrhddin, 
(having  collected  them,  as  he  pretended,  from  oral  tradition)  are 
now  universally  regarded  as  forgeries.1  Indeed,  the  lady  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Molaix,  whom  he  cites  as  an  authority  for 
these  ballads,  has  been  pronounced  by  one  critic  to  be  probably 
a  sister  of  the  imaginary  Mrs.  Harris  in  Dickens's  Martin  Chuz- 
zlewit.  Furthermore,  Merlin,  like  the  other  characters  of  Ar- 
thurian romance,  does  not,  of  course,  appear  in  the  literature  of 
the  Gaels.  Now,  with  regard  to  the  Welsh  evidence:  In  the  body 
of  ancient  Welsh  poetry2  there  are  eight  poems  which  purport 
to  be  the  compositions  of  a  bard  named  Myrddin.  This  is  evi- 
dently the  same  name  as  the  Merlinus  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  — 
only  as  Gaston  Paris  has  remarked,3  Geoffrey  probably  shrank 
from  Latinizing  the  Welsh  name  in  the  natural  way  as  Merdinus, 
owing  to  the  similarity  to  a  French  word  of  unpleasant  associations 
which  would  have  resulted,  and  so  changed  the  d  to  an  Z.  But  the 
value  of  these  poems  as  evidence  of  traditions  concerning  Merlin 
among  the  Welsh  is  seriously  impaired  by  the  doubt  which  at- 
taches to  their  antiquity.     The  result  of  the  most  authoritative 


1  Cp.  pp.  39 ff.  and  notes. 

2  Edited  by  W.  F.  Skene,  Four  Ancient  Books  of  Wales,  2  vols. 
(Edinburgh,  1868). 

3  Romania,  XII,  376  (1883). 


130  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

examination  of  this  question  that  has  been  made4  is  that  all  the 
Welsh  poems  in  question  were  really  composed  later  than  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  Dialogue  of  Merlin 
and  Taliesin,5  which  is  either  contemporary  with  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth  or  perhaps  slightly  earlier.6  Moreover,  all  of  them, 
except  the  Dialogue,  betray  the  use  of  Geoffrey's  Vita  Merlini.1 
Nevertheless,  these  poems  give  evidence  as  to  the  existence  in 
Welsh  tradition  of  Merlin  and  the  personages  associated  with  him 
in  the  Vita  Merlini  —  only  the  few  concrete  allusions  they  con- 
tain bearing  on  the  history  of  Merlin  seem  derived  from  Geoffrey. 
Besides,  after  all,  they  merely  show  that  Merlin  was  a  bard  like 
Taliesin,  who  certainly  enjoyed  greater  fame  among  the  ancient 
Welsh  than  Merlin  ever  did.  The  Dialogue,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  the  least  open  to  suspicion  of  the  Welsh  poems  gives  us 
a  conversation  between  Myrddin  (Merlin)  and  Taliesin  concerning 


4  By  F.  Lot,  "Etudes  sur  Merlin",  Annates  de  Bretagne,  XV, 
324ff.,  505 ff.  (1900). 

5  Skene,  I,  368ff.  (translation),  II,  3 f f .  (Welsh  text). 

6  In  Y  Cymmrodor,  XI,  48  (1892),  E.  Phillimore,  one  of  the 
best  Welsh  authorities,  speaks  of  the  Welsh  Merlin-poems  "following-" 
Geoffrey's  Vita  Merlini  in  making  the  hero  go  out  of  his  mind,  in 
consequence  of  the  battle  of  Arderydd,  so  that  he,  too,  evidently  re- 
gards these  poems  as  subsequent  to  Geoffrey.  In  the  same  article 
("Additional  Notes"  to  J.  E.  Lloyd's  "Welsh  Place-Names",  ibid., 
pp.  15  ff.)  this  scholar  interprets  Myrddin  (the  Welsh  name  for  Merlin) 
as  a  mere  eponymus  "derived  from  the  place-name  Caerfyrddin 
(=  modern  Carmarthen),  like  Efrog  (Peredur's  father  in  the  Peredur) 
from  Caer  Efrog  (Modern  English  York)  or  Lleon  Gawr  from 
Caerleon  (Modern  English  Chester).  And  again,  pp.  47 f.,  he  remarks 
that,  in  changing  the  narrative  of  Nennius  (his  source)  and  putting 
"the  fatherless  boy"  (Geoffrey's  Merlin)  at  Carmarthen,  "Geoffrey  had 
here  in  his  mind's  eye  the  connection  of  Myrddin  with  Caerfyrddin'' 
—  that,  moreover,  Geoffrey  in  the  Vita  Merlini  makes  Merlin  king 
of  Dyfed  (his  mother  in  the  Historia  was  already  daughter  of  a  king 
of  Dyfed),  because  in  those  days  (down  to  1132)  Dyfed  included 
Carmarthen. 

It  would  seem,  however,  from  Lot's  study  that,  even  if  the  name 
Myrddin  is  derived  from  Caerfyrddin,  the  derivation  is  older  than 
Geoffrey.    May  not,  indeed,  the  latter  name  be  derived  from  the  former? 

7  Cp.  Lot,  op.  cit.,  p.   515. 


Merlin  131 

the  battle  of  Arderydd  in  which  Merlin  expresses  sadness  at  the 
slaughter.  This  battle,  it  may  be  remarked,  was  fought  at  Ar- 
thuret,  near  Carlisle,  about  the  year  575,  between  Rhydderch  ap 
Tudwal,  the  friend  of  St.  Columba,  and  another  Celtic  chieftain 
of  the  North,  Gwenddoleu  ap  Ceidio,  the  former  being  victorious.8 
The  poem,  however,  is  so  meagre  and  its  meaning  so  dark,  that 
we  merely  gather  from  it  that  Merlin  is  a  bard.  At  the  end  of  the 
Dialogue  we  have  the  obscure  words: 

Since  I,  Myrddin,  am  next  after  Taliessin, 
Let  my  prediction  become  common. 

This  is  the  only  hint  in  the  poem  that  Merlin  has  prophetic 
gifts  —  indeed,  the  only  thing  in  works  not  demonstrably  depen- 
dent on  Geoffrey  that  suggests  the  possession  of  prophetic  powers 
on  the  part  of  Merlin  in  all  Welsh  literature.  But,  apart  from 
the  doubtful  antiquity  even  of  the  Dialogue,  this  would  be  a 
slender  basis  for  supposing  that  the  Welsh  regarded  Merlin  as  a 
prophet,  especially  as,  notwithstanding  the  words  just  quoted,  there 
is  actually  no  prediction  in  the  poem  —  a  fact  which  excites 
the  suspicion9    that  these  words  may  have  been  a  later  addition. 

If  the  poems  which  we  have  been  considering  throw  little 
light  on  the  subject  of  Merlin's  place  in  Welsh  tradition,  it  is 
even  worse  with  the  remaining  Welsh  records  —  the  Triads  and 
the  Mabinogion.  Two  of  the  former  mention  Merlin  —  the  first 
of  them  as  one  of  the  three  chief  bards  of  Britain,  the  second  in 
connection  with  his  marvellous  disappearance.  But  these  triads 
are  late10  and,  hence,  worthless  for  our  purpose.  The  Mabinogion 
do  not  mention  Merlin  by  name  at  all  and  the  only  connection 
whatever  between  the  tales  in  this  book  and  the  traditions  con- 
cerning Merlin  is  that  in  one  of  them,  Lludd  and  Llevelys,  there 
is  a  story  of  a  combat  between  a  white  and  a  red  dragon  which 
figures  in  the  narrative  of  Merlin  and  Vortigern's  tower  in  Geof- 


8  Cp.  J.  E.  Lloyd's  History  of  Wales,  I,   166. 

9  Cp.  Lot,  op.  cit,  p.  535,  note  2. 

10  Cp.  E.  Phillimore's  observations  on  the  subject  in  the  Early 
English  Text  Society's  edition  of  the  Middle  English  Merlin,  Part  IV, 
p.  XCVin,  note  3. 


132  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

frey's  Historia.    This  same  story,  to  be  sure,  appears  in  Nennius 
connected  with  another  name. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  extant  Welsh  literature, 
then,  is,  evidently,  that  Merlin  was  of  relatively  little  importance 
in  Welsh  tradition,  and,  if  we  depended  merely  on  the  mention  that 
the  above  records  make  of  him,  we  should  say  that  he  was  known 
to  that  tradition  simply  as  a  bard  —  not  as  a  magician  or  prophet. 

It  will  simplify  subsequent  discussion,  if  we  state  at  once  the 
conclusion  to  which  we  are  forced  by  all  the  evidence  —  namely, 
that  Merlin  owes  his  fortune  in  the  history  of  fiction  and  popular 
tradition  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.  He  is  virtually  the  creation 
of  Geoffrey.  Let  us  take  up  now  the  history  of  this  wondrous 
being. 

In  the  Historia  Brittonum  of  Nennius  (ch.  40 — 42) u  we 
have  the  following  story  concerning  the  tower  which  Vortigern 
tried  to  build  on  Mount  Hereri  or  Snowdon  as  a  refuge  from  the 
Saxons: 

Workmen  begin  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  building,  but  on 
three  successive  nights  the  work  done  during  the  preceding  day  is 
destroyed.  Vortigern's  wise  men  inform  him  that,  before  the  tower 
can  be  built,  the  ground  must  be  sprinkled  with  the  blood  of  a 
child  born  without  a  father.  The  king  at  once  sends  out  messengers 
in  search  of  such  a  child.  When  they  arrive  at  the  field  of  Elleti 
in  Gleguissing  they  hear  a  boy  jeer  at  a  comrade,  because  he  has 
never  had  a  father,  and  the  boy's  mother  confirms  the  truth  of 
the  taunt  and  asserts  that  the  child  is,  indeed,  the  son  of  no  mortal 
man.  The  messengers  accordingly  take  him  to  Vortigern  whom 
the  boy  proceeds  to  question  shrewdly,  until  the  king  admits  why 
he  has  been  brought  thither.  Then  the  child  orders  the  wise  men 
to  declare  what  there  is  beneath  the  spot  where  Vortigern  wishes 
to  build.  When  they  say  that  they  do  not  know,  he  bids  them 
dig  into  the  ground  where  they  will  find  a  pond  in  which  there 
are  two  vases;  in  the  vases  is  a  folded  tent  and  in  the  tent  are 
two  sleeping  dragons,  one  white  and  the  other  red.  The  men  dig 
and  find  that  the  boy's  words  are  true.     Suddenly  the  dragons 

11  See  Mommsen's  edition,  pp.  181  ff.,  Monumenta  Germaniae 
Historica,  1904. 


Merlin  133 

begin  a  terrible  combat  with  each  other,  in  which  the  red  dragon 
succeeds  in  routing  the  white  one.  The  boy  proceeds  to  explain 
to  the  king  that  the  pool  signifies  the  world,  the  tent  Britain,  the 
red  dragon  the  British  nation,  the  white  dragon  the  Saxons.  Vor- 
tigern,  he  adds,  must  depart  from  this  place,  but  he  himself  to 
whom  fate  has  allotted  it  will  remain  there.  The  king  asks  him 
his  name,  and  he  replies:  "I  am  called  Ambrosius."12  The  king 
next  asks  as  to  his  origin  and  he  replies  that  he  is  the  son  of 
a  Roman  consul.  This  is,  of  course,  a  flat  contradiction  of  what 
was  said  at  the  beginning  of  the  episode.  Vortigern  obediently 
assigns  the  site  of  the  stronghold  to  Ambrosius  with  all  the  other 
provinces  of  Britain  and  himself  departs  elsewhere.  Later  Nennius 
tells  us  that,  after  the  death  of  Vortigern,  his  son,  Pascentius, 
received  two  provinces  from  Ambrosius,  "who  was  the  great  king 
among  the  kings  of  Britain." 

Miss  L.  A.  Paton  has  justly  observed13  that  we  evidently 
have  here  a  reminiscence  of  the  barbarous  "  custom  of  offering 
a  human  being  to  the  deity  of  a  selected  site  as  a  foundation  sacri- 
fice". Whether,  as  she  maintains,  the  two  dragons  were  origi- 
nally two  supernatural  shape-shifters  who  had  assumed  for  the 
time  being  the  form  of  dragons  is,  I  believe,  much  less  certain. 
The  part  which  Ambrosius  plays  in  this  affair14  seems  borrowed 
from  one  of  the  numerous  Talmudic  legends  concerning  Solomon 
in  which  the  wise  king  by  a  ruse  captures  the  demon  Aschmedai 
(or  Asmodeus,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  call  him)  and  makes  him 


12  Nennius's  Ambrosius  is  identical,  of  course,  with  the  Ambrosius 
Aurelianus  who,  according  to  the  historian  Gildas,  led  the  Britons 
against  the  Anglo-Saxon  invaders  after  the  withdrawal  of  the  Roman 
legions.  E.  Phillimore  remarks,  Y  Cymmrodor,  XI,  48  f.  (1892),  that 
the  identity  is  proved  by  the  gloss  which  is  found  in  all  the  MSS. 
of  Nennius  after  the  words  "Ambrosius  vocor",  in  this  passage,  viz., 
"id  est  Embreis  Guletic".  Now,  Gwledig  (Guletic),  which  is  equi- 
valent to  the  Latin  Princeps  or  Imperator,  could  indicate  here  no 
one  save  the  historical  chieftain  named  by  Gildas. 

13)  In  her  article  on  this  episode,  "The  Story  of  Vortigern' s 
Tower  —  an  Analysis",  Radcliffe  College  Monographs,  no.  15, 
pp.  14ft.  (1910). 

14  Cp.  Miss  Paton,  op.  tit.,  p.  18,  note  1. 


134  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tell  how  he  can  obtain  possession  of  a  certain  wonderful  creature 
who  is  necessary  in  the  building  of  the  Temple  of  Jerusalem. 

Now  this  story  of  Nennius  was  used  by  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth (Book  VI,  ch.  17 — 19)  with  certain  differences  of  which 
the  most  important  are  as  follows:  He  calls  the  boy  without  a 
father  Merlin  as  well  as  Ambrosius.15  Moreover,  the  messengers 
take  Merlin's  mother,  who  is  the  daughter  of  a  king  of  Demetia, 
to  Vortigern  with  the  lad,  and  she  gives  the  king  a  full  account 
of  Merlin's  birth,  explaining  that  his  father  was  an  incubus.16 
Just  after  this  story  Geoffrey  inserts  the  famous  prophecies  of 
Merlin,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  large  part,  refer  to  recent 
political  events  of  the  author's  own  time.  They  make  up  the 
entire  Seventh  Book  of  his  Historia,  but  had  already  been  in  cir- 
culation as  a  separate  work.17    The  next  book  begins  with  a  pro- 


15  Cp.  Geoffrey,  Book  VI,  ch.  19:  Tunc  ait  Merlinus,  qui  et  Am- 
brosias dicebatur".     Similarly,  VII,  3. 

In  his  "Merlin  and  Ambrosius",  Kittredge  Anniversary  Papers, 
pp.  119ff.,  G.  H.  Maynadier  explains  (p.  125)  Geoffrey's  identification 
of  Merlin  with  Ambrosius  as  follows:  Nennius  says,  ch.  41,  that  Am- 
brosius was  found  in  the  region  Gleguissing,  which,  even  if  it  did  not 
actually  include  the  vale  of  the  river  Towy,  was,  in  any  event,  near 
that  stream.  Now,  Caermarthen,  which  is  connected  by  name  with 
Merlin  (Myrddin)  —  see  p.  130,  note  6  above  —  lies  on  the  Towy. 
Hence,  "nothing  would  be  more  natural  than  for  Geoffrey  to  combine 
the  two  men".  —  Apart,  however,  from  our  ignorance  as  to  the  extent 
of  Gleguissing,  the  vague  geographical  connection  here  assumed 
seems  unnecessary  for  the  identification.  The  inclusion  of  a  great 
magician  in  his  work  was  suggested  to  Geoffrey  by  Nennius's  Ambrosius 
and  the  designation,  Ambrosius  Merlinus,  testifies  to  this  historical 
connection  between  the  two  characters,  but  Geoffrey's  enchanter  was 
to  have  an  altogether  different  scope  from  Nennius's  —  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  was  destined  to  prove  one  of  the  greatest  creations  of  the 
mediaeval  imagination  —  and  so  he  calls  him,  after  a  brief  period  of 
hesitation,  exclusively  by  the  new  name. 

16  This  notion  of  the  sexual  commerce  of  incubi  with  mortals 
was  common  in  the  Middle  Ages. 

17  On  Geoffrey's  so-called  Libellus  Merlini  and  the  numerous 
political  phrophecies  which  were  modelled  after  it  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
see  San  Marte,  Die  Sagen  von  Merlin,  pp.  32 ff.,  (Halle,  1853)  and 
Rupert  Taylor,  The  Political  Prophecy  in  England,  (New  York,  1911), 


Merlin  135 

phecy  of  Merlin  concerning  the  death  of  Vortigern  and,  later  on, 
tells  of  his  exploit  of  moving  the  stones  of  Stonehenge  —  or 
Giants'  Dance,  as  it  is  called  —  from  Mount  Killaraus  in  Ireland 
to  their  present  site.  In  this  affair,  which  was  probably  invented 
by  Geoffrey,  Merlin  appears  as  hardly  more  than  a  marvellous 
engineer.  He  reappears,  however,  (ch.  15),  as  interpreting  to 
Uther  Pendragon,  the  father  of  Arthur,  a  portent  which  betokens 
the  death  of  Aurelius  Ambrosius  —  the  Ambrosius  Aurelianus 
of  Gildas  —  whose  gallant  deeds  constitute  a  large  part  of  the 
narrative  of  this  Eighth  Book.  Then  follows  (ch.  19 — 20)  the 
last  and  most  famous  of  Merlin's  achievements  related  by  Geof- 
frey —  his  transformation  of  Uther  into  the  likeness  of  Gorlois, 
Duke  of  Cornwall,  so  that  he  might  have  access  to  Igerna,  the 
wife  of  Gorlois  —  on  which  occasion  he  begets  Arthur.  It  has 
often  been  maintained,  and  no  doubt  correctly,  that  this  episode 
is  merely  an  adaptation  of  the  well-known  story  of  the  conception 
of  Hercules  —  how  Jupiter  assumed  the  appearance  of  Amphitruo 
and  in  the  latter' s  absence  deceived  Alcmena  and  begot  the  fa- 
mous hero. 

Looking  back  over  the  Merlin  material  in  Geoffrey's  Historia, 
which  I  have  just  summarized,  it  seems  in  the  highest  degree 
unlikely  that  any  of  it  was  derived  from  oral  tradition.  Nennius, 
classical  legend,  and  his  own  fancy  seem  to  account  for  the  whole. 
Things  are  not  so  plain  —  at  first  blush,  at  any  rate  —  when 
we  come  to  the  next  important  Merlin  document  —  namely,  the 
poem  in  Latin  hexameters  called  the  Vita  Merlini  —  which  is  also 
commonly  ascribed  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth.  To  be  sure,  the 
correctness  of  this  ascription  which  is  found  at  the  end  of  the  poem 
itself,    has  at  various  times  been  disputed,18    but  the  fact  that 


in  Columbia  University  Studies  in  English.  Despite  the  title  of  the 
latter,  it  contains  also,  ch.  6,  a  discussion  of  the  Galfridian  type  of 
prophecy  in  other  countries  than  England. 

There  is,  in  addition,  a  thirteenth-century  French  (prose)  work 
entitled  Les  Prophecies  de  Merlin,  which,  notwithstanding  its  title, 
is  very  different  from  the  Libellus  Merlini.  On  this  later  work 
cp.  Part  III,  below. 

18  Cp.  San  Marte's  Die  Sagen  von  Merlin,  pp.  273 ff.  and  various 
scholars  cited  by  H.  L.  D.  Ward,  Catalogue  of  Romances  in  the  De- 


136  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

in  the  concluding  lines  of  the  poem  the  Historia  is  spoken  of  as 
celebrated  throughout  the  world  is  no  reason  for  doubting  the 
authenticity  of  the  ascription.  Modesty  was  certainly  not  the 
strong  point  of  the  writer  who  tried  to  palm  off  the  Historia  as 
an  authentic  narrative.  Moreover,  the  prophecy  of  Ganieda  found 
in  this  poem  (11.  1474  ff.)  relates  to  actual  political  events  during 
the  years  1139 — 1144,19  and  1148 — 9  has  been  established  as  its 
date.20  These  facts  support  the  view  that  the  work  is  really 
Geoffrey's.  It  is,  indeed,  singular  that  a  poem  by  so  famous  an 
author  should  exist  in  only  one  complete  MS.  (Vespasian  E.  IV, 
of  the  British  Museum),  and  that  of  the  late  thirteenth  century 
—  yet  this  does  not  justify  us  in  rejecting  it  as  spurious. 

The  Vita  Merlini  is  the  most  original  of  all  the  works  con- 
cerning Merlin  which  the  Middle  Ages  have  left  us,  and  parts  of 
it  are  genuinely  poetical  —  so  that  it  will  be  necessary  to  consider 
for  a  moment  this  curious  production,  the  action  of  which  is  sup- 
posed to  fall  after  the  translation  of  Arthur  to  Avalon.  Following 
is  a  condensed  analysis  of  its  contents: 

Merlin  was  a  king  and  a  prophet  who  had  already  lived  an 
indefinite  age,  when  a  war  breaks  out  between  the  princes  of 
Britain,  Peredur,  King  of  Venedotia  (North  Wales),  being  the 
leader  on  one  side,  and  Guennolous,  King  of  Scotland,  on  the 
other.  Merlin  and  Rodarchus,  King  of  Cumberland,  were  with 
Peredur.  The  Scots  are  routed,  but  Merlin  loses  three  brothers  in 
the  battle.  This  misfortune  plunges  him  into  grief  and  madness 
and  he  flies  to  the  desert.  There  he  becomes  a  wild  man  (Sil- 
vester homo),  lives  on  fruits,  and  fills  the  Caledonian  forest  with 
his  lamentations.  Rodarchus,  however,  who  had  married  Ganieda, 
Merlin's  sister,  tried  to  bring  back  the  fugitive  to  his  court.    At 


partnient  of  Manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum,  I,  278 ff.  So 
far  as  I  know,  however,  Brugger  is  the  only  living  scholar  who  denies 
the  poem  to  Geoffrey.  For  his  views  cf.  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt., 
XX1,  105  (1897)  and  ibid.,  XXX1,  217,  note  (1906).  For  an  answer 
to  the  objections  which  have  been  raised  to  Geoffrey's  authorship  of 
the   Vita  Merlini,  cp.  Ward,  loc.  cit. 

19  Cp.  Ward,  op.  cit,  pp.  282 ff. 

20  Cp.  Ward,  pp.  285  f.  and  F.  Lot,  Annates  de  Bretagne,  XV,  333. 


Merlin  137 

last,  this  is  effected  by  a  messenger,  who  finds  Merlin  seated 
by  a  spring  in  the  forest  and  watching  the  play  of  the  wild  ani- 
mals. This  man  sings  to  a  "cithara"  the  woes  of  Merlin's  wife, 
Gwendoloena,  on  account  of  her  absent  husband.  The  music  heals 
Merlin  of  his  madness  and  he  allows  himself  to  be  led  back  to  the 
court  of  Rodarchus.  But  there  his  madness  soon  returns  on  him 
and  he  is  eager  to  return  to  the  oaks  and  high  mountains  of  the 
forest.  To  prevent  his  escape,  Eodarchus  has  him  put  in  bonds. 
Merlin  falls  into  a  profound  melancholy  and  does  not  utter  a  word. 
One  day  the  queen  was  traversing  the  hall,  when  her  husband 
took  her  by  the  hand  and  made  her  sit  down;  but,  as  he  leant 
over  to  kiss  her,  he  observed  a  leaf  in  her  hair.  He  took  it  and 
threw  it  on  the  ground.  Merlin  burst  into  laughter  at  this. 
Everyone  was  astonished,  but  the  sage  refused  to  explain  his  singu- 
lar merriment,  unless  he  was  set  at  liberty.  Rodarchus  had  him 
unbound  and  Merlin  explains  that  the  leaf  which  the  king  had 
just  removed  from  his  wife's  hair  had  fallen  there  shortly  be- 
fore as  she  was  passing  through  the  thicket  for  a  rendezvous  with 
her  lover.  The  queen  tries  to  discredit  Merlin's  power  of  divi- 
nation by  putting  him  to  a  test.  She  has  the  same  child  brought 
in  three  times  in  different  costumes,  so  as  to  deceive  the  enchanter 
as  to  his  identity,  and  Merlin  each  time  predicts  a  different  kind 
of  death  for  him:  he  will  fall  from  a  high  rock  —  he  will  die 
on  a  tree  —  he  will  be  drowned.  The  queen  is  exultant  over  the 
success  of  her  ruse,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Merlin's  prophecies 
all  come  true;  for  the  child,  when  he  grew  up,  whilst  chasing 
a  stag,  fell  from  a  high  rock  and  was  drowned  in  a  stream  that 
flowed  at  its  base,  but  his  feet  caught  in  a  tree  and  there  he 
was  suspended. 

Merlin  returns  to  the  forest  and  gives  permission  to  Gwen- 
doloena to  marry  another  man,  but  the  bridegroom  must  beware 
of  letting  Merlin  see  him.  One  bright  night  the  seer  reads  in 
the  stars  that  his  wife  has  taken  him  at  his  word  and  is  about  to 
marry.  He  assembles  a  great  herd  of  wild  deer  and  goats  and 
mounts  a  stag.  Driving  the  remaining  animals  before  him,  he 
goes  to  his  wife's  house  and  calls  her  out  to  see  the  wedding  pre- 
sents he  has  brought  her.    She  naturally  smiles  at  the  spectacle, 


138  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

but  the  bridegroom  puts  his  head  out  of  the  window  and  laughs. 
Filled  with  rage,  Merlin  tears  off  the  antlers  of  the  stag  he  is 
riding,  hurls  them  at  his  unlucky  rival  and  kills  him  on  the  spot. 
He  then  flees,  but  is  stopped  by  a  torrent,  made  prisoner,  and 
brought  back  before  his  sister  in  chains-  He  falls  into  a  sullen 
dejection  and  refuses  food.  To  distract  him,  his  brother-in-law 
has  him  taken  out  for  a  walk  through  the  town,  but  at  the  palace 
gate  they  meet  a  porter  miserably  clad,  asking  alms  of  the  passers- 
by.  Merlin  bursts  out  laughing  and  acts  similarly  when,  a  little 
further  on,  in  the  market-place,  he  sees  a  young  man  buying  shoes 
and  pieces  of  leather  to  repair  them  with.  In  both  cases  Merlin 
refused  to  explain  his  laughter,  unless  his  freedom  was  to  be  the 
reward.  Rodarchus  at  last  consents,  and  Merlin  explains  that  the 
beggar  had  at  that  very  time  a  hidden  treasure  under  his  feet 
and  the  young  man  was  drowned  immediately  after  making  his 
purchases. 

The  enchanter  returns  again  to  the  wilderness.  His  sister 
wishes  to  follow  him,  but  he  prevents  her  —  only,  later  on,  he  per- 
mits her  to  visit  him  and  bring  him  food  in  the  cold  season. 
He  gets  her,  moreover,  to  build  him  a  house  in  the  forest  with 
70  doors  and  70  windows,  so  that  he  can  sit  within  and  predict 
the  future  by  observation  of  the  heavens.  His  prophecies  are 
taken  down  by  140  scribes.  Here  he  foretells  most  of  the  calamities 
which  are  to  befall  the  Britons  —  including  the  death  of  Rodarchus, 
after  which  event  Ganieda  resolves  to  fly  from  the  world  and  live 
with  her  brother. 

Taliesin  joins  Merlin  and  gives  a  long  description  (11.  737 ff.) 
of  the  universe,21  winding  up  with  the  famous  account  (11.  908 ff.) 
of  the  Happy  Isle,  where  Morgan  lives  with  her  eight  sisters.22 


21  The  immediate  source  of  this  description,  as  of  several  other 
similar  descriptions  (11.  827ff.,  859ff.,  1179ff„  1298ff.),  in  the  Vita 
MerUni,  is  the  Etymologiae  of  Isidore  of  Seville,  who,  in  turn,  derived 
his  information  from  Pliny's  Historia  Naturalis.  Cp.  F.  Lot,  Ro- 
mania, XLV,  Iff.  (1918—1919). 

"Insula  pomorum  quae  Fortunata  vocatur, 
Ex  re  nomen  habet,  quia  per  se  singula  profert: 
Non  opus  est  illi  sulcantibus  arva  colonis; 
Omnis  abest  cultus  nisi  quern  natura  ministrat: 


Merlin  139 

Thither  Taliesin  in  a  boat,  steered  by  Barinthus,23  has  taken  Arthur 


Ultro  foecundas  segetes  producit  et  uvas, 

Nataque  poma  suis  praetonso  germine  silvis; 

Omnia  gignit  humus  vice  graminis  ultro  redundans. 

Anuis  centenis  aut  ultra  vivitur  illic, 

lllic  iura  novem  geniali  lege  sorores 

Dant  his  qui  veniunt  nostris  ex  partibus  ad  se: 

Quarum  quae  prior  est  fit  doctior  arte  medendi, 

Exceditque  suas  forma  praestante  sorores; 

Morgeu  ei  nomen,  didicitque  quid  utilitatis 

Gramina  cuncta  ferant,  ut  languida  corpora  curet; 

Ars  quoque  nota  sibi  qua  scit  mutare  figuram, 

Et  resecare  novis  quasi  Daedalus  aera  pennis; 

Cum  vult  est  Bristi,  Carnoti,  sive  Papiae 

Cum  vult  in  nostris  ex  aere  labitur  horis. 

Hancque  mathematicam  dicunt  didicisse  sorores, 

Moronoe,  Mazoe,  Gliten,  Glitonea,  Gliton, 

Tironoe,  Thiten,  cithara  notissima  Thiten. 

Illuc,  post  bellum  Camblani,  vulnere  laesum 

Duximus  Arcturum,  nos  conducente  Barintho, 

Aequora  cui  fuerant  et  coeli  sydera  nota. 

Hoc  rectore  ratis,  cum  principe  venimus  illuc, 

Et  nos  quo  decuit  Morgen  suscepit  honore, 

lnque  suis  talamis  posuit  super  aurea  regem 

Strata  [MS.  has  stulta]  manuque  sibi  detexit  vulnus  honesta. 

Inspexitque  diu;  tandemque  redire  salutem 

Posse  sibi  dixit,  si  secum  tempore  longo 

Esset,  et  ipsius  vellet  medicamine  fungi. 

Gaudentes  igitur  regem  commisimus  illi, 

Et  dedimus  ventis  redeundo  vela  secundis." 

Only  in  this  passage  is  Morgan  represented  as  one  of  the  nine 
sisters.  For  a  plausible  explanation  of  the  names  of  these  sisters  see 
L.  A.  Paton's  Fairy  Mythology,  p.  44,  note  2.  There  is  a  similar 
description  in  the  Gesta  Regum  Britanniae  —  a  thirteenth  century 
adaptation  in  verse  of  Geoffrey's  Historia.  The  island,  however,  is 
unnamed  and  the  healer  is  merely  called  regia  v'xrgo.  For  the  text 
of  this  passage  and  a  discussion  of  the  same  see  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  p.  300. 

23  In  the  Revue  Celtigue,  XXII,  339 ff.  (1901),  A.  C.  L.  Brown 
has  pointed  out  that  this  character  is  really  a  seagod,  who,  like 
Manannan  in  the  Welsh  tales,  conducted  voyagers  to  the  Celtic  Other- 
world.  We  have  a  similar  Christian  adaptation  of  this  idea  in  the 
Navigatio  Brendani. 


140  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

aiter  the  battle  with  Mordred,  in  the  hope  that  the  fay  might 
be  able  to  bring  him  back  to  life. 

Merlin  then  laments  over  the  misfortunes  which  the  Saxons 
are  destined  to  inflict  on  the  Britons;  but  no  one  now  alive  will 
see  that  time.  Conan  of  Brittany  and  Cadwallader,  however, 
will  expel  the  invaders. 

During  the  dialogue  of  the  two  friends  an  attendant  announces 
that  a  fountain  of  pure  water  has  sprung  up  in  the  valley.  Merlin 
drinks  of  it,  to  quench  his  thirst,  but  it  also  restores  him  to  reason. 
He  thanks  the  creator,  and  Taliesin  takes  occasion  (11.  1179ff.) 
to  describe  the  celebrated  fountains  of  the  world. 

At  the  end  of  this  conversation  Merlin  is  again  plunged  into 
sadness  by  the  sight  of  a  madman  who  comes  up  and  whom  he 
recognizes  as  a  friend  of  his  youth.  The  madman  had  been  a 
noble  and  worthy  knight.  He  and  some  of  his  companions  had 
gone  hunting  with  Merlin.  They  came  upon  a  spring  with  fruits 
lying  about  them.  Merlin  picked  them  up  and  distributed  them 
so  generously  among  his  friends  that  there  was  not  one  left  for 
himself.  But  the  men  who  ate  them  were  deprived  of  reason  and 
ran  away  like  wolves.  The  poisoned  fruit  had  really  been  inten- 
ded for  Merlin  by  a  quondam  mistress  of  his  whom  he  had  aban- 
doned (11.  1422 ff.).  They  take  the  poor  madman  now,  compel 
him  to  drink  of  the  spring,  and  he  recovers  his  reason.  He  an- 
nounces his  purpose  of  remaining  in  the  wilderness  with  Merlin. 
Taliesin  sends  home  the  kings  who  had  assembled  to  hear  Merlin's 
prophecies  and  the  enchanter  is  left  with  his  two  friends  and  his 
sister.  The  latter,  Ganieda,  is,  in  her  turn,  seized  with  the  pro- 
phetic gift  and  declares  a  number  of  marvels.  With  her  speech 
the  poem  ends  —  only  there  is  an  epilogue  in  which  Geoffrey 
bids  the  Britons  weave  a  crown  for  him. 

On  first  reading  this  strange  narrative  concerning  the  great 
enchanter  of  Celtic  legend,  as  we  are  accustomed  to  call  him,  one 
is  naturally  inclined  to  take  for  granted  that  the  materials  on 
which  it  is  based  are  Celtic  —  but  a  closer  analysis  of  its  elements 
reveals  the  fact  that  the  sources  are  only  to  a  very  limited  degree 
Celtic,  in  any  proper  sense,  and  that  the  Orient  has  supplied  a  far 
larger  proportion  of  the  motifs.2*    The  longest  step  made  in  the 


Merlin  141 

analysis  of  the  Merlin  legend  we  owe  to  the  late  H.  L.  D.  Ward, 
who  published25  in  1893  the  so-called  Lailoken  fragments  preser- 
ved in  the  British  Museum  MS.,  Titus  A.  XIX.  Here  we  have 
the  most  important  single  source  for  the  Vita  Merlini.  To  be 
sure,  Ward  does  not  seem  to  have  been  fully  aware  of  the  im- 
portance of  his  own  discovery. 

There  are  two  fragments  in  the  manuscript  just  named.  Both 
relate  to  a  madman  named  Lailoken,  but  the  second  is  later  than 
the  first,  and  its  author  seems  to  have  been  familiar  with  the  first 
fragment.  In  the  first  fragment  at  one  point  Merlin  is  identified 
with  Lailoken,  but  this  sentence,  as  Ward  has  observed,  is  the 
addition  of  a  later  hand  under  the  influence  of  Geoffrey.  In  the 
first  of  these  fragments  Lailoken  gives  the  triple  prediction  of  the 
death  of  one  person  (only  the  person  is  himself).  In  the  second 
we  have  the  incident  of  the  leaf  which  betrays  the  queen's  adul- 
tery. The  fragments  give  these  narratives  in  a  more  consistent 
and  primitive  form  than  the  Vita  Merlini,  and  there  can  be  no 
question  that  Geoffrey  made  use  of  these  Lailoken  stories  and 
possibly  of  others  concerning  the  same  personage  that  have  not 
survived.  The  whole  conception  of  Merlin  in  the  Latin  poem  is 
borrowed  from  this  earlier  madman  and  prophet,  and  the  one 
ranges  the  Caledonian  forest,  because  the  other  had  done  so  be- 
fore him.  In  the  words  of  Phillimore,26  the  eminent  Welsh 
scholar,  Merlin  has  simply  stepped  into  the  shoes  of  Lailoken. 

24  This  has  been  proved  by  Ward  and  Lot  in  the  discussions 
which  T  have  already  cited  above. 

25  In  "Lailoken  or  Merlin  Silvester",  Romania,  XXII,  504ff.  (1893). 
28  Cp.    Y   Cymmrodor,    XI,    45  f.    (1892).      He   observes,    also, 

(p.  48):  "With  Geoffrey  the  identification  of  Merlin  and  Lailoken  was 
complete;  but  with  the  later  Scottish  writers  it  was  still  a  matter  of 
doubt."  Phillimore  says,  loc.  cit.,  that  Lailoken  (Lailocen)  "is  mentioned 
in  ch.  XLV  of  Jocelyn  of  Furness'  Life  of  St.  Kentigern  as  Laloecen 
or  Laloicen,  a  fool  at  the  court  of  Rhydderch  Hael,  who  possessed 
the  gift  of  prophecy;  in  the  Welsh  Merlin  poems  this  word  (there 
used  as  a  name  or  epithet  of  Merlin)  is  made  into  Llalogan,  which 
has  been  explained  as  meaning  'twin-brother';  but  there  is  plenty  of 
evidence  that  it  was  a  personal  name."  He  then  cites  (p.  48)  Lalocan 
in  the  Cartulaire  de  Redon,  125  (already  cited  by  Ward)  and  the 
simpler  form,  Lalocc,  as  a  woman's  name,  in  Whitley  Stokes'  Tripartite 
Life  of  St,  Patrick,  pp.  82,  104,  317. 


142  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

According  to  the  first  fragment  of  the  Cottonian  MS.,  Lai- 
loken  had  an  evil  disposition  and,  like  the  Irish  Bricriu,  was  con- 
stantly stirring  up  discord  among  his  compatriots.  As  he  was 
one  day  watching  a  battle,  however,  (localized,  it  would  seem, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Carlisle)  which  was  due  to  his  malicious 
efforts,  a  voice  from  heaven  reproaches  him  with  the  responsibi- 
lity and  condemns  him  henceforth  to  a  life  among  the  beasts. 
He  also  saw  a  supernatural  light  and  hosts  of  angels  casting  their 
lances  at  him.  At  this  sight  he  loses  his  reason  and  flies  to  the 
desert.  But  he  would  often  come  to  a  rock  in  sight  of  Glasgow 
and  utter  predictions  which  people  took  down  in  writing.  One 
day  whilst  Saint  Kentigern,  the  famous  Scottish  saint,  is  cele- 
brating mass,  Lailoken  disturbs  the  ceremony  by  howling  and  de- 
manding communion.  Kentigern  sends  a  messenger  to  bid  him  be 
quiet  —  but  without  success.  The  messenger  goes  three  times 
and  each  time  the  madman  predicts  that  he  is  about  to  die  — 
stating,  however,  in  each  instance  a  different  mode  of  death.  He 
adds  also  a  prediction  of  the  impending  death  of  three  eminent 
personages  in  Britain.  After  this  he  runs  away,  but  the  same  day 
the  triple  prediction  of  his  own  death  is  fulfilled. 

In  the  second  fragment  Lailoken  is  captured  by  king  Meldred. 
and  kept  in  chains  at  Dunmeller.  He  will  not  gratify  his  cap- 
tors, however,  by  uttering  prophecies  —  on  the  contrary,  for  three 
days  he  will  neither  eat  nor  speak.  Then  comees  the  incident 
of  the  leaf,  when,  like  Merlin,  he  bursts  out  laughing  and  will 
only  explain  his  laughter  on  being  promised  his  liberty.  At  the 
same  time  he  gives  directions  as  to  his  burial,  for  in  a  few  days  he 
is  to  die  the  triple  death.  On  being  released,  he  discloses  the 
queen's  adultery.  She  tries  to  discredit  the  prophet  by  pointing 
out  the  impossibility  of  the  triple  death.  The  king,  however,  will 
not  believe  her.  On  the  other  hand,  the  queen,  later  on,  out  of 
revenge,  compasses  the  death  of  Lailoken,  and  he  is  buried,  as 
he  had  requested,  at  the  junction  of  the  Pausayl  with  the  Tweed. 

The  Lailoken  legend,  then,  is  the  most  important  source  for 
the  Vita  Merlini,  but  it  is  doubtful  how  far  this  legend  itself  re- 
presents oral  tradition  among  the  Celts.  The  motif  of  the  pro- 
phecy of  a  triple  death  is  found  in  the  East  —  so,  too,  the  reve- 


Merlin  143 

lation  of  adultery  by  the  scornful  laughter  of  a  captive  gifted 
with  supernatural  knowledge.27  The  same  is  true  of  the  motif 
of  the  boy  whose  ignorance  of  his  impending  fate,  when  making 
provision  for  the  repair  of  his  shoes,  causes  the  prophet  to  laugh. 
Parts  of  the  remainder,  like  Ganieda's  prophecy,  are,  no  doubt, 
mere  inventions  of  Geoffrey,28  whilst  the  apples  that  cause  mad- 
ness and  the  wild  story  of  Merlin's  appearing  at  his  wife's  marriage 
riding  a  stag  with  whose  antlers  he  slays  the  bridegroom  are, 
in  all  probability,  both  drawn  from  oral  tradition.  The  latter 
has  every  mark  of  a  folk-tale,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  it  was  originally  told  either  of  Merlin  or  Lailoken,  and  Geof- 
frey was,  no  doubt,  the  first  to  connect  it  with  the  former. 

Before  leaving  the  Vita  Merlini,  it  should  be  remarked  that 
Giraldus  Cambrensis  distinguishes  two  Merlins29  —  Merlin  Am- 
brosius  and  Merlin  Silvester  —  and  this  fictitious  distinction  has 
descended  to  our  own  time  and  confused  some  modern  students 
of  the  Arthurian  romances.  But  there  is  no  reason  whatever  for 
such  a  distinction;30  the  Merlin  of  the  Historia  and  the  Merlin 
of  the  Vita  Merlini  differ  in  some  respects,  but,  as  we  have  seen, 
both  are  substantially  the  creations  of  Geoffrey  and  neither  have 
any  root  in  popular  tradition.  He  himself  identifies  them  by  a 
specific  reference  in  the  Vita  Merlini  (11.  68 Iff.). 

During  the  forty  years  or  so  that  followed  upon  the  com- 
position of  Geoffrey's  Latin  poem  the  fame  of  Merlin  was  spread 
far  and  wide,  not  only  by  Geoffrey's  own  writings,  but  by  deri- 


27  Compare  the  Indian  tales  cited  in  another  connection  by  Miss 
Paton,  PMLA,  XXII,  241  ff.  (1907). 

28  Miss  Paton,  in  her  article,  "Merlin,  and  Ganieda",  MLN  for 
June,  1903,  has  tried  to  prove  that  in  the  original  form  of  the  story 
Gauieda  must  have  been  the  enchanter's  fairy-mistress,  not  his  sister. 
But  this  theory  is  a  pure  exercise  of  fancy,  for  there  is  no  documen- 
tary evidence  whatever  to  support  it.  Cp.  this  scholar's  similar  theory 
in  regard  to  the  original  relations  of  Arthur  and  Morgan  le  Fay,  in 
her  Fairy  Mythology,  pp.  29,  33. 

29  Cp.  Itinerarium  Kambriae,  Book  II,  ch.  8. 

30  This  has  been  made  clear  by  F.  Lot,  Annates  de  Bretagne, 
XV,  pp.  333 ff. 


144  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

vatives  from  those  writings  —  especially,  by  extensions  of  Mer- 
lin's Prophecies  and  by  paraphrases  of  the  Historia  in  the  verse 
and  prose  chronicles.  It  was  not  until  the  appearance  of  the  Merlin 
of  Robert  de  Boron,  however,  that  the  stories  that  centre  about 
the  character  received  any  material  development.  This  poem  — 
which,  for  the  most  part,  survives  only  in  a  prose  version  —  falls 
probably  in  the  last  fifteen  years  of  the  twelfth  century.  As 
we  shall  see  more  fully  later  on,  it  constitutes  the  second  member 
of  an  intended  series  of  poems  and  follows,  in  the  main,  the  ac- 
count of  Merlin  given  by  Geoffrey,  whom  Robert,  however,  pro- 
bably knew  only  through  Wace.31  The  most  striking  thing  in 
the  poem  —  the  story  of  Merlin's  conception  —  is  based  on  Geof- 
frey, but  the  original  story  is  happily  combined  with  a  motif  drawn 
from  popular  notions  concerning  Anti-Christ  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
We  find  here  again  some  of  the  motifs  of  the  Vita  Merlini  — 
which  reached  the  French  poet,  however,  no  doubt,  through  indirect 
channels  —  viz.,  the  triple  prediction,  the  incident  of  the  man 
about  to  die  who  is  so  careful  in  regard  to  his  future  footwear. 
Some  variations  in  the  account  of  Arthur's  conception,  as  com- 
pared with  Geoffrey  and  Wace,  may  be  due  to  the  lost  chronicle 
of  a  certain  Martin  of  Rochester,  which  appears  to  have  covered, 
these  events.32  In  the  account  of  Arthur's  birth  and  childhood, 
however,  Robert  makes  a  radical  departure  from  his  sources  in 
order  to  increase  the  importance  of  his  hero,  Merlin.  In  Geoffrey 
(Book  VIII,  ch.  20),  immediately  after  Uther  Pendragon  had  be- 


31  In  his  Introduction  to  the  Huth-Merlin,  pp.  Xff.,  G.  Paris 
has  established,  in  essentials,  the  sources  of  Robert's  Merlin.  Note, 
besides,  that  the  incident  of  the  man  who  so  carefully  provides  himself 
with  foot-gear,  although,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  a  few  minutes  he  is 
destined  to  die,  occurs  in  Robert  (Huth-Merlin,  I,  p.  48 f.),  as  well 
as  in  the  Vita  Merlini,  11.  495ff.  —  so,  doubtless,  the  latter  should, 
also,  be  reckoned  among  Robert's  sources.  Cp.  Lot,  Annates  de  Bre- 
tagne,  XV,  336,  note  1. 

32  According  to  MS.  749,  fol.  32  (Bibl.  Nat.),  as  quoted  by 
P.  Paris,  RTR,  II,  36,  note,  Robert  used  a  chronicle  by  this  person, 
and  some  scholars,  as  we  have  seen,  —  e.  g.,  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Lit,  XXX1,  182ff.  (1906) —  accept  the  statement  as  authentic. 
With  regard  to  this  Martin  cp.  p.  29,  note  59,  above. 


Merlin  145 

gotten  Arthur  upon  Igerna,  having  assumed  the  form  of  her  hus- 
band, Gorlois,  through  Merlin's  magic  art,  Gorlois  himself  is  killed 
and  Uther  marries  his  widow.  Thus  when  Arthur  is  born,  there 
is  no  scandal  concerning  his  birth,  only  Uther  and  Merlin  being 
in  the  secret  of  his  conception.  But  Robert  puts  the  marriage 
two  months  after  the  conception,  so,  to  obviate  scandal,  Merlin 
has  the  boy  turned  over  to  him,  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  and  entrusts 
it  to  a  good  man  named  Antor  (Auctor)33  who  does  not  know 
the  child's  rank  and  whose  wife  gives  it  suck.  Fifteen  years  after- 
wards Uther  dies  and  Britain  is  without  a  king.  The  kingdom 
is  to  go  to  the  man  who  can  draw  a  sword  from  a  certain  mar- 
vellous anvil.  Arthur  alone  proves  equal  to  the  task.34  The 
barons  murmur  at  the  success  of  a  person  of  apparently  low  rank, 
but  he  soon  convinces  them  that  he  possesses  royal  qualities,  and 
he  is  first  knighted  and  then  crowned  king  at  the  Feast  of  Pen- 
tecost.   Here  Robert's  poem  ends. 

Finally,  we  should  note  that,  in  a  passage35  which  occurs 
before  the  account  of  Arthur's  conception,  Robert  connectc  the 
poem  with  an  unnamed  knight  who  is  destined  to  achieve  the  ad- 
ventures  of  the  Grail.36      Merlin    relates  here   the  story   of   the 

33  This  is,  probably,  a  mere  corruption  of  Arthur.  Gawain  and 
Helyas  (the  Swan-Knight)  were,  also,  named  after  their  foster-fathers. 
Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  p.  288. 

This  sword  motif  is  found,    also,    in    the  leg-ends    of  Theseus 
and  Sigmund.     Cp.  Bruce,  op.  cit,  pp.  297  f. 

36  Sommer,  II,  53ff. 

36  Scholars  (e.  g.,  G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin,  I,  p.  XVII)  have  been 
accustomed  to  assume  that  this  unnamed  knight  was  Perceval.  This, 
is,  however,  by  no  means,  certain,  although  I  have  no  doubt  that  Robert 
knew  Chretien's  Perceval.  The  passage  runs  in  the  Huth  MS.  (cp. 
Huth-Merlin,  I,  98)  as  follows:  "Tant  te  puis  jou  [i.  e.,  Merlin,  who 
is  speaking  to  Uther  Pendragon]  bien  dire  qu'il  ne  sera  pas  emplis 
en  ton  tans.  Et  cil  qui  l'emplira  naistera  de  celui  qui  engendrer 
[Paris's  emendation  for  MS.  emplir]  le  doit.  Et  n'a  point  encore  de 
feme  prise  ne  ne  set  riens  qu'i[l]  le  doie  engenrer.  Et  couverra 
que  cil  qui  emplir  le  doit  acomplisse  chelui  [lieu]  avant  ou  li  vaissiaus 
del  graal  siet,  car  cil  qui  le  gardent  ne  le  virent  onques  acomplir; 
ne  che  ne  sera  jamais  en  ton  tans,  ains  averra  au  tans  le  roi  qui 
apries  toi  verra." 

In  the  MS  followed  by  Sommer  (II,  56)  the  second  sentence  in 


146  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

two  holy  tables  of  Jesus  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  —  the  table 
of  our  Lord's  last  supper  and  the  table  which  Joseph  instituted 
in  memory  of  our  Lord's  table  —  and  he  induces  Uther  to  in- 
stitute a  third  table  at  which  there  is  to  be  a  vacant  seat  as  at 
the  former  tables.  Merlin  prophesies  that  this  seat  will  only  be 
filled  in  the  reign  of  Uther 's  son  and  by  a  knight  who  will  put 
an  end  to  the  adventure  of  the  Grail.  This  idea,  like  most  of 
Robert's  inventions,  had  a  great  success  with  the  prose  romancers. 

Robert  de  Boron's  poems  have  no  striking  merit  —  they  are 
far  inferior  to  those  of  Chretien  de  Troyes  —  but  in  the  genre 
of  the  prose-romances  their  influence  is  of  capital  importance.  He 
is,  above  all,  responsible  for  three  innovations  in  Arthurian  ro- 
mance: 37  he  gave  it  both  a  religious  and  a  pseudo- historical  co- 
loring and  he  cast  his  compositions  in  a  cyclic  form.  His  Merlin, 
with  which  we  are  now  more  especially  concerned,  was  turned 
into  prose,  and  this  prose  rendering,  as  we  have  seen,  forms  the 
first  section  of  the  various  prose  Merlins  which  were  composed  in 
the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century.  These  romances,  accor- 
dingly, begin  with  Robert's  story  of  Merlin's  conception,  whose 
elements  we  have  indicated  above.  The  devils  hold  council  as  to 
how  they  shall  counteract  the  work  of  Christ.     They  agree  that 


the  passage  just  quoted  is  represented  by:  "&  cil  qui  l'acomplira  nest 
encore  mie  engendres",  whilst  there  is  nothing  at  all  corresponding 
to  the  third  sentence. 

If  the  reading  of  the  Huth  MS.  is  correct,  the  allusion  certainly 
would  not  fit  with  anything  that  we  learn  about  Perceval's  father  in 
Chretien's  poem.  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  to  correspond  rather 
with  the  allusion  to  the  future  heir  of  Alein  (Hebron's  son)  in  Robert's 
Joseph,  1.  3467: 

"Et  ques  oirs  de  li  peut  issir", 

where  there  is  no  hint  that  Perceval  is  intended.  In  any  event,  even 
if  the  unnamed  knight  in  the  passage  under  consideration  is  to  be 
accepted  as  Perceval,  to  judge  by  Robert's  extant  works,  he  would 
have  been  a  very  different  character  from  Chretien's  and  his  story 
would  have  differed  accordingly.  On  this  subject,  see,  still  further, 
Part  IV,  below. 

37  This  has  been  pointed  out  by  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u. 
Litt,  XXIX1,  75  ff.  (1905). 


Merlin  147 

this  can  only  be  done  by  a  man  who  is  born  of  a  virgin  and  one 
of  the  devils  undertakes  to  engender  such  a  person.  The  narrative 
of  how  this  enterprise  is  executed  is  weird  in  the  extreme  and  has 
a  real  tragic  force,  but,  fortunately,  the  innocence  of  the  victim 
defeats  the  object  of  the  fiends  and  the  child  who  is  thus  begotten 
inherits  his  father's  supernatural  powers,  but  not  his  wickedness. 
We  have  already  seen  how  this  being  was  destined  to  watch  over 
Arthur's  infancy  and  childhood  up  to  the  coronation  of  the  great 
king  with  which  Robert  de  Boron's  poem  ends.  In  the  several 
continuations  of  Robert's  Merlin,  the  enchanter  appears  again  from 
time  to  time  as  a  deus  ex  machina,  but,  after  all,  the  Merlin  ma- 
terial in  these  huge  continuations  —  the  Vulgate  continuation, 
for  example,  is  more  than  four  times  the  length  of  the  de  Boron 
section  —  constitutes  only  a  small  portion  of  the  whole  romance. 
Take,  for  instance,  the  continuation,  just  named,  which  is  the 
oldest  of  the  three  extant  continuations.  It  is  really,  as  we  shall 
see,  a  pseudo-history  of  Arthur's  reign  down  to  the  appearance 
of  Lancelot  on  the  scene  —  Arthur's  wars  with  his  rebellious 
barons  and  with  the  Saxons,  his  marriage  with  Guinevere,  and 
what  not.  Most  of  this  narrative  is  a  patch- work  of  motifs  deri- 
ved from  Wace  or  from  the  lost  expanded  version  of  that  writer's 
Brut  or  again  from  romances  like  the  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez. 
Only  occasionally  do  we  have  a  bit  of  genuine  Celtic  tradition 
as  in  Arthur's  fight  with  the  Capalu,  a  monster-cat.38  As  far 
as  Merlin  is  concerned,  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  of 
the  new  incidents  connected  with  his  name  in  the  Vulgate  con- 
tinuation (or  Livre  d'Artus,  as  it  is  also  called)  are  of  Celtic 
origin. 

The  most  distinctive  of  these  are:  1.  the  Grisandole  episode. 
2.  The  episode  of  Merlin  and  Viviane,  which  ends  in  V ' enserrement 
Merlin,  as  the  Old  French  romance  calls  it:   he  succumbs  to  Vi- 


38 


See  Sommer,  II,  442  ff.  Freymond  (cp.  p.  41,  note  9,  above), 
in  a  masterly  monograph,  Artus'  Kampf  mit  dem  Katzenungestilm 
(in  the  Festgabe  fur  G.  Grober,  Halle,  1899),  has  shown  that  the 
Capalu  is  the  Cath  Panic  of  Welsh  saga,  although  in  Welsh  the  creature 
is  not  at  all  connected  with  Arthur. 


148  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

viane's  spell  and  is  imprisoned  forever  in  the   forest  of   Broce- 
liande.39 

First,  as  to  the  Grisandole  episode,40  it  is  briefly  as  follows: 
Julius  Caesar,  emperor  of  Rome,  is  troubled  by  an  incomprehensible 
dream.  Merlin  knows  of  it,  assumes  the  form  of  a  stag,  comes  to 
Caesar's  palace,  followed  by  a  multitude  of  people,  and  tells  him 
that  only  the  wild  man  of  the  woods  can  interpret  his  dream.  The 
enchanter  then  opens  the  palace  gates  by  magic  and  vanishes.  The 
emperor  promises  his  daughter's  hand  as  a  reward  for  the  capture 
of  the  wild  man  or  the  stag.  Many  knights  go  on  the  quest, 
but  all  later  abandon  it,  save  Grisandole,  who  is  really  a  princess 
disguised  as  a  man.  The  stag  appears  to  Grisandole  and  tells 
how  the  wild  man  may  be  caught.  She  is  to  spread  food  for  him 
in  the  forest  as  a  snare.  She  does  this,  and  when  the  creature, 
after  gorging  himself,  lies  down  to  sleep,  she  and  her  men  capture 
him  and  take  him  back  to  court.  We  have  now  the  motif  of  the 
sudden  bursts  of  laughter,  like  those  of  Merlin  in  the  Vita  Merlini. 
There  is  no  need  of  relating  the  three  incidents  —  all  significant, 
however,  of  the  wild  man's  powers  of  divination.  In  the  end  he 
explains  his  laughter  in  each  case,  as  Merlin  does  in  the  Latin 
poem.  The  main  thing  is  that,  on  reaching  the  palace,  he  inter- 
prets Caesar's  dream  as  signifying  that  the  twelve  ladies-in-honor 
to  the  queen  are  really  twelve  youths  in  disguise  with  whom  she 
is  leading  an  adulterous  life.  He  further  explains  that  he  had 
laughed  on  looking  at  Grisandole,  because  a  woman  by  her  craft 
had  taken  him  prisoner  when  no  man  could  capture  him.  Gri- 
sandoie's  sex  is  thus  revealed.  As  a  result  of  it  all,  the  queen  and 
her  paramours  are  burned,  Grisandole  marries  the  emperor  and 
her  brother  the  emperor's  daughter. 

The  wild  man  refuses  to  reveal  who  the  great  stag  is  or  his 
own  name  and  leaves  the  hall  abruptly,  writing  an  inscription 
in  Hebrew  on  one  of  the  door-posts,  as  he  passes  out.  Some  time 
afterwards  a  messenger  from  Greece  interprets  the  inscription, 
which  explains  that  the  wild  man  and  the  stag  are  one  and  the 


39  For  this  latter  episode  see  Sommer,  H,  208  h\,  280,  421 

40  Cp.  Sommer,  II,  282  ff. 


Merlin  149 

same  being,  named  Merlin,  Arthur's  counsellor.  Instantly  there- 
after the  letters  vanish. 

The  main  motifs  of  the  above  episode  are  found  combined, 
already  in  a  number  of  stories  current  both  in  Europe  and  the  East 
—  that  is  to  say,  the  story  of  the  disguised  girl  who  captures  the 
wild  man  or  satyr,  as  he  is  sometimes  called,  this  wild  man  being 
endowed  with  the  gift  of  divination  by  which  he  reveals  his  cap- 
tor's sex  and  a  queen's  infidelity  to  her  husband.  We  even  have 
in  these  tales  the  sudden  outbursts  of  laughter.41  The  stories 
of  Solomon  and  Aschmedai  (Asmodeus),  as  we  have  seen,  had 
already  furnished  motifs  to  the  Vita  Merlini,  and  in  the  above 
episode,  no  doubt,  we  have  these  same  stories  drawn  on;  for  in 
the  Hebrew  legend  of  Solomon  Asmodeus  plays  exactly  the  same 
role  as  the  wild  man  does  here.  As  regards  Merlin's  assumption 
of  the  form  of  a  stag,  this  seems  a  sort  of  confused  recollection 
of  the  passage  in  the  Vita  Merlini,  where  Merlin  rides  to  the 
palace  on  a  stag.  This  preface  of  the  Grisandole  episode  was 
evidently  introduced  merely  to  connect  with  Merlin  the  piquant 
tale  of  the  disguised  maiden,  the  faithless  queen,  and  the  mar- 
vellous wild  man  of  the  woods;  but  the  connection  is,  after  all, 
of  the  most  awkward  kind. 

The  Grisandole  episode,  then,  is  not  Celtic  in  origin.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  the  story  of  Merlin  and  Viviane,  immortalized 

41  In  her  paper  on  this  episode,  "The  Story  of  Grisandole", 
PMLA,  XXII,  234ff.  (1907),  Miss  L.  A.  Paton  tries  to  show  that  we 
have  here  again  the  hard- worked  fairy-mistress  theme  (see  p.  256)  in 
disguise  (Grisandole  was  originally  a  fairy  and  Merlin  her  lover)  and 
that  the  story  is  drawn  from  oral  Celtic  tradition.  For  my  own  part, 
as  I  have  already  intimated,  I  am  skeptical  on  principle  as  to  virtually 
every  story  of  any  importance  in  mediaeval  romance  being  a  variant 
of  the  fairy-mistress  theme.  But,  besides,  as  Miss  Paton  herself  acknow- 
ledges, some  features  of  the  tale  —  to  my  mind  the  most  essential  — 
are  indisputably  of  Oriental  origin  —  for  example,  the  capture  of  the 
laughing  wild  man  who  is  compelled  to  exercise  his  powers  of  divi- 
nation. Why  not  take  this  wide-spread  story  at  its  face  value,  instead 
of  reading  into  it  the  worn  out  fairy  mistress  motif?  This  explains 
everything  in  the  episode,  except  Merlin's  part  in  it,  and  that  is  plainly 
a  clumsy  addition,  as  anyone  might  have  guessed,  even  if  a  comparison 
with  the  cognate  tales  did  not  prove  it. 


150  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

by  Tennyson,  and  here  the  case  is  even  plainer  than  in  the  epi- 
sode just  examined.  It  was  pointed  out  by  Gaston  Paris,42  that 
the  essential  conception  of  this  lamous  story  —  the  only  really 
pretty  one  in  the  whole  Merlin  continuation,43  is  first  found 
in  the  prose  Lancelots  There  Merlin  betrays  the  magic  spell 
to  Viviane  or  Niniane  (the  MSS.  vary  as  to  the  form  of  the 
name),45  on  her  promising  him  her  love,  but,  after  obtaining  the 
secret,  she  uses  her  magic  power  to  make  him  believe  that  he  has 
enjoyed  her  favours,  though,  in  reality,  he  has  not.  At  last  she 
shuts  him  up  forever  in  a  cave  in  the  forest  of  Darnantes.  Vi- 
viane in  this  passage  is  identified  with  Lancelot's  foster-mother, 
the  Lady  of  the  Lake.  This  story  of  Merlin  and  Viviane  is, 
probably,  an  early  interpolation  in  the  Lancelot*6  but,  in  any 
event,  it  is  certainly  the  original  of  the  more  fully  developed 
episode  in  the  prose  Merlin.  Furthermore,  it  is  unquestionable 
that,  contrary  to  former  views  on  the  subject,  the  conception  here 
involved  was  first  attached  to  Merlin  by  the  author  of  the  above- 
mentioned  passage  in  the  prose  Lancelot  and  has  nothing  Celtic 
about  it;  for,  obviously,  the  Merlin-Viviane  incident  is  merely 
a  new  adaptation  of  the  old  fabliau  motif  of  the  wise  man  deceived 
by  a  woman,  which  is  ultimately  of  Oriental  origin.47    Aristotle,- 

"  Cp.  Huth-Merlin,  I,  p.  XLVI. 

43  Cp.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXXIII1,  149  (1908). 

44  Sonnner,  III,   19ff. 

46  The  MSS.  show  still  other  variants.  Cp.  Sommer's  Index  to 
his  Vulgate  Version  under  Viviane.  This  is,  most  probably,  the 
correct  form  of  the  name.  It  would  be,  then,  the  feminine,  corres- 
ponding to  the  masculine  Vivian  (Vivien),  so  well-known  from  the 
chansons  de  geste.  Names,  however,  are  subject  to  such  corruption 
in  mediaeval  MSS.  that,  after  all,  Diane  (Diana)  may  be  the  true 
etymon  of  Viviane.  In  her  Fairy  Mythology,  ch.  4,  Miss  Paton 
treats  at  length  Viviane's  character,  as  well  as  her  name,  and  con- 
cludes that  both  are  Celtic.  The  episodes  in  the  Huth-Merlin,  etc., 
however,  which  she  discusses,  in  reality,  are  all  of  purely  literary 
manufacture.  We  shall  see  in  our  chapters  on  the  prose  romances  that 
this  was  true,  in  general,  of  these  works. 

46  In  the  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXX1,  175  ff.  (1906),  Brugger 
seems  to  me  to  have  proved  this. 

47  A.  Jeanroy  was  the  first  to  point  this  out  in  his  review  of 
Miss  Paton's  Fairy  Mythology.    Cp.  Romania,  XXXIV,  120  (1905). 


Merlin  151 

Hippocrates  and  Virgil,  as  we  have  seen  above,  figure  successively 
in  these  tales  as  the  butt  of  feminine  deceit.  Merlin's  turn  was 
sure  to  come.  That  this  is  the  true  derivation  of  the  Merlin-Vi- 
viane  story  is  so  evident  that  no  further  argument  on  the  subject 
is  required.  Even  the  detail  noted  in  the  Lancelot  passage  of 
the  magical  illusion  under  which  Merlin  labors  as  to  his  enjoyment 
of  his  lady's  favors  is  found  in  the  Solomon  and  Marcolf  legend 
and  had  already  been  employed  by  Chretien  in  Cliges,  as  was  ob- 
served above.  It  is  a  noteworthy  mediaeval  feature  of  the  Vulgate 
Merlin  that  Viviane  was  only  twelve  years  old  when  Merlin  fell 
in  love  with  her.  The  author  of  the  Merlin  of.  the  so-called  Robert 
de  Boron  prose  cycle,  best  represented  in  the  somewhat  shortened 
form  of  the  Huth-Merlin,  took  over  this  episode  from  the  Vulgate 
romance  and  from  his  work48)  it  passed  into  Malory49  and  thence 
into  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  Kifig.50  This  episode  and  a  gene- 
ral reputation  for  magic  and  prophetic  powers  are  all  that  can 
be  still  called  vital  in  the  stories  concerning  Merlin  which  are 
found  in  the  books  that  we  have  been  passing  in  review. 

Brugger  had,  independently,  arrived    at  the   same  interpretation.     Cp. 
his  elaborate  argument  mZs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Lift.,  XXX1,  1 1 7  ff .  (1906). 

43  II,   191  ff.,  in  the  edition  of  G.  Paris  and  J.  Ulrich. 

49  Book  IV,  ch.  1. 

80  Merlin  and  Vivien. 


Chapter  V. 
Tristan. 

In  one  important  respect  the  study  of  the  story  of  Tristan 
is  easier  than  is  the  case  with  that  of  Lancelot:  there  is  sub- 
stantial agreement  among  authorities  on  the  subject  that  all  the 
mediaeval  romances  and  shorter  poems  concerning  this  hero  go 
back  to  a  lost  French  romance1     of  a  considerably  earlier  date 


1  Owing  to  its  archaic  character  and,  the  (in  many  respects) 
rude  civilization  which  it  depicted  Bedier,  II,  314,  dates  this  lost 
romance  back  "jusq'  aux  premiers  temps  de  la  conquete  de  l'Angleterre 
par  les  Normands",  which  must  mean,  at  the  latest,  the  early  years 
of  the  twelfth  century.  Golther,  p.  73,  however,  objects  that  the  in- 
troduction of  Arthur  and  his  knights  proves  that  it  must  have  been 
written  after  Geoffrey's  Historia,  which  dates  from  about  1136,  had 
made  these  characters  familiar  figures  —  more  specifically,  between 
1140  and  1150.  Indeed,  Golther,  p.  34,  was  inclined  to  believe 
that  the  adultery  of  a  nephew  with  his  uncle's  wife  in  this  pri- 
mitive Tristan  was  imitated  from  the  similar  relations  of  Mordred, 
Arthur,  and  Guinevere  in  Geoffrey's  work,  as  Muret,  Romania,  XVI, 
322  (1887)  had  already  suggested.  Miss  Schoepperle,  p.  183,  dates 
the  lost  romance  "very  shortly"  before  the  extant  redactions,  none  of 
which,  according  to  her^  antedate  the  last  decades  oi  the  twelfth  century. 

Bedier,  II,  154f.,  accepts  1154  as  the  date  of  Bernart  de  Ven- 
tadour's  lyric  which  contains  the  earliest  allusion  to  Tristan  and  Iseult, 
and  hence  as  the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  primitive  Tristan,  but 
Miss  Schoepperle,  pp.  112ff.,  has  shown  that  the  true  date  ot  com- 
position of  this  lyric  is  wholly  .uncertain,  and,  consequently,  that  it 
cannot  be  used  for  dating  the  lost  archetype  of  our  Tristan  poems. 
Her  own  late  dating  of  this  archetype  (pp.  120ff.)  is  based  on  the 
observation  that  it  contained  motifs  -that  did  not  become  current  until 
the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth  century:  1.  A  girl  who  eludes  an  im- 
portunate lover  (Kaherdin-Camille  episode),  imitated,  according  to  Miss 
Schoepperle,  from  the  pastourelles ;  2.  Two  lovers  deceive  a  jealous 
husband,  despite  all  his  precautions  (Kaherdin-Gargeolain),  imitated  from 


Tristan  153 

than  any  on  the  subject  that  is  now  in  existence.  The  close  rela- 
tion of  the  incidents  in  the  various  extant  versions  of  the  story, 
despite  individual  divergencies,  was  explained  by  scholars  of  the 
last  generation  as  due  to  the  fact  that  the  writers  all  drew  from  the 
same  body  of  lays  or  prose  tales  which  were  supposed  to  be  current 
orally,2  but  the  conviction  gradually  forced  itself  on  the  minds 

the  chansons  de  mat  mariee.  3.  Notions  that  are  rooted  in  the  amour 
courtois  (cp.,  already,  Muret,  Romania,  XVI,  360),  such  as  the  extra- 
vagant tests  of  humiliation  to  which  a  lady  puts  her  lover  and  the 
idea  that  a  lover  must  do  anything,  if  appealed  to  in  the  name  of  his 
lady-love.  4.  The  stereotyped  characters  of  Arthur,  Kay  and  Gawain, 
which  show  the  influence  of  the  Arthurian  romances.  In  Eilhart  11.  5047 ff. 
especially,  I  may  add,  show  unmistakably  this  influence.  They  describe 
as  accurately  as  possible  the  plan  of  the  regular  Arthurian  romances. 

F.  Lot's  criticism  (Romania,  XLIII,  128 f.)  of  these  points  has 
invalidated,  I  think,  so  late  a  dating  of  the  primitive  Tristan  as  Miss 
Schoepperle's  (which,  besides,  would  be  impossible,  if  Thomas'  poem 
were  written  about  1170),  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  evidence,  espe- 
cially under  the  above  heading,  is  sufficient  to  prove  that  this  lost 
archetype  was  not  earlier  than  the  romances  of  antiquity  (1155  — 1165). 
G.  Huet,  Moyen  Age,  2e.  serie,  XVIII,  380ff.  (1914),  has  added 
Iseult's  love-monologue  (Eilhart,  2398 ff.)  to  Miss  Schoepperle's  illu- 
strations of  the  amour  courtois.  The  matter  is  not  susceptible  of 
determination,  but  it  seems  most  likely  that  ideas  of  the  amour  cour- 
tois were  in  the  archetype,  since  they  are  found  in  all  the  extant 
versions.  The  same  thing  applies  to  the  Arthurian  connections  of  these 
versions.  To  be  sure,  in  the  case  of  Thomas,  this  connection  is  very 
slender,  consisting  entirely  of  Arthur's  encounters  with  two  giants 
(Bedier,  I,  290  ff.,  307),  which  really  stand  outside  of  the  Tristan 
adventures  and  may  very  well  have  been  borrowed  directly  from  Ge- 
offrey's Historia,  Book  X,  ch.  3  or  Wace's  Brut,  11.  11634ff.  In 
Beroul,  11,  3706 ff.  et  passim,  and  Eilhart,  11.  5231  ff.,  Arthurian 
characters  are  more  intimately  connected  with  the  narrative,  and  Lot. 
op.  cit.,  pp.  131  f.,  argues  that  the  episode  in  Eilhart  was  expressly 
introduced  by  the  author  for  the  purpose  of  imparting  novelty  to  the 
story.     This,  of  course,  is  possible. 

In  his  "Tristan  bei  Cercamon  ?",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XLI,  219ff. 
(1921),  C.  Appel,  detects  an  allusion  to  Tristan  in  a  poem  of  this 
Provencal  poet.  He  assigns  the  poem  to  the  period,  1150 — 1160, 
and  contends  that  this  is  the  earliest  extant  allusion  to  Tristan.  The 
evidence,  however,  is  too  uncertain. 

2  So  R.  Heinzel,  Zs.  f.  d.  A.  XIV,  272ff.  (1869),  W.  Golther, 
Die  Sage  von  Tristan  mid  Isolde,  pp.  30  ff.  et  passim  (Munich  1887). 


154  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  students  of  the  Tristan  romances  that  the  resemblances  in 
question  were  really  due  to  a  common  original  —  a  definite  ro- 
mance, now  lost.3  This  solution  of  the  problem  was  given  scientific 


F.  Novati,  Studj  di  filologia  romanza,  II,  390  (1887),  G.  Paris, 
Manuel,  pp.  99  ff.  (1888).  For  historical  surveys  of  Tristan  studies, 
cp.  Bedier,  II,   168ff.  and  Golther,   Iff. 

3)  In  his  review  of  Rbttiger's  Program  in  Romania,  XXVII,  608ff. 
(1898),  E.  Muret  makes  Chretien's  lost  poem  and  Thomas  the  sources 
(one  or  the  other)  of  all  extant  Tristan  versions.  E.  Brugger,  Zs.  f 
frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  XX,  134,  note  (1898)  suggested  a  single  source 
(undefined).  Golther,  however,  ibid.  XXII1,  23  (1900),  was  the  first 
to  work  out  a  definite  scheme,  based  substantially  on  the  hypothesis 
of  a  single  source  (Chretien).  In  his  later  work  Golther  gives  up 
Chretien  as  the  author  of  the   Ur-Tristan. 

In  the  Journal  des  Savants  for  1902,  p.  301;  note  2,  G.  Paris 
expressed  the  belief  that  all  French  Tristan  poems  go  back  to  a  lost 
English  poem,  itself  incomplete.  In  that  case,  the  story  of  Tristan 
and  Iseult  would  have  passed  from  the  Cornish  (or  Welsh)  to  the 
English  and  from  the  English  to  the  French.  For  a  discussion  of  this 
hypothesis  and  the  reasons  which  led  Paris  to  adopt  it  see  Bedier  II, 
314ff.  In  so  far  as  these  reasons  are  connected  with  Paris's  general 
theory  of  the  Anglo-Norman  origin  of  the  Arthurian  romances,  I  have 
dealt  with  them  elsewhere.  For  the  rest,  I  will  add  to  what  Bedier 
says  on  the  subject  that  the  testimony  of  the  unpublished  French  poem 
Waldef  (eleventh  or  twelfth  century)  as  to  the  existence  of  an  early 
English  Tristan  (Tristram)  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  valueless,  since  in 
the  same  line  the  author  of  this  poem  speaks  of  an  early  English 
original  for  the  French  Bruit  (Brut).  The  line  of  works  entitled 
Brut,  however,  all  go  back  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  (cf.  Gaiinar. 
Wace  etc.)  and  have,  of  course,  nothing  to  do  with  any  earlier  English 
works.  Cp.  on  this  subject  Golther,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  XXIX 2, 
151  ff.  (1906)  and  Brugger,  ibid.  XXXII 2,  136ff.  (1907),  and,  above 
all,  R.  Immelmann  in  his  edition  of  the  fifteenth  century  Latin  Waldef 
romance,  Johannes  Bramis'  Historia  Regis  Waldei,  pp.  XXX ff. 
(Bonn,  1912).  The  argument  from  the  Waldef  which  Paris  had  al- 
ready cited,  Romania  XV,  597  (1886),  XVIII,  510  (1889),  in  con- 
nection with  the  discussion  of  Tristan's  origin,  was  adopted,  also,  by 
W.  Hertz,  Tristan  und  Isolde  von  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  pp.  477 f. 
—  so,  too,  apparently  by  W.  H.  Schofield,  English  Literature  from 
the  Norman  Conquest  to  Chaucer,  p.  202  (New  York,  1906).  Schofield 
here  goes  so  far  as  to  connect  the  incident  of  Tristan's  sending  his 
message  to  Iseult  by  the  chips  on  the  stream  with  the  Anglo-Saxon 
lyric  which  is  usually  entitled  "The  Husband's  Message/' 


Tristan  155 

demonstration  by  Bedier  in  the  Second  Volume  (1905)  of  his 
great  edition  of  Thomas'  Tristan*  and  substantially  the  same 
results  were  reached  independently  by  W.  Golther  in  his  Tristan 
und  Isolde  (1907),  which,  though  published  two  years  later,  had 
been  written  before  the  appearance  of  Bedier 's  work.  The  con- 
clusions of  Bedier  and  Golther  have  been  disputed  by  a  few  scho- 
lars, as  will  be  observed  from  the  notes  below,  but,  in  general, 
we  may  say  that  the  existence  of  a  single  primitive  Tristan  ro- 
mance (Ur-Tristan,  as  German  scholars  call  it)  from  which  all 
extant  versions  are  ultimately  derived  is  one  of  the  few  matters 
of  Arthurian  discussion  on  which  students  are  definitely  agreed.5 


4)  Also  in  a  popular  article  in  the  now  defunct  International 
Quarterly  (March-June,   1904). 

5  It  would  seem  natural  to  identify  this  Ur-Trlstan  with  the  lost 
poem  "del  roi  Marc  et  d'  Iseut  la  blonde"  which  Chretien,  in  the  list 
of  his  works,  Cliges,  11.  Iff.,  tells  us  that  he  wrote,  and,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  Foerster,  Cliges*,  p.  LXVIII,  argues  that  the  two  are  identical. 
But  its  connection  in  this  list  with  Chretien's  tales  from  Ovid  (cer- 
tainly compositions  of  the  poet's  youth)  shows  that  the  lost  poem  was 
an  early  work.  Now,  the  Ur-Tristan  was  evidently  a  masterpiece 
and  superior  in  construction  and  in  poetical  content  to  even  the  ma- 
turest  romances  from  Chretien's  pen,  so  that  it  is  inconceivable  that 
it  was  one  of  Chretien's  compositions.  Golther,  p.  74,  very  properly 
raises  this  objection  to  the  theory  of  the  identity  and  adds  with  less 
force  that  Chretien  is  not  likely  to  have  had  the  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish conditions  that  the  Ur-Tristan  (as  reconstructed  by  Bedier  and 
himself,  with  a  high  degree  of  probability)  implies.  Foerster,  loc.  cit., 
tries  to  meet  Golther's  objection,  with  the  supposition  that  Chretien 
had  before  him  a  still  earlier  Tristan  poem  (Ururtristan)  and  that 
the  merits  of  construction  may  have  come  to  him  from  his  original. 

In  the  Journal  des  Savants  for  1902,  pp.  299 ff.,  G.Paris  has 
argued  that  Chretien  did  not  write  a  full  poem  on  the  story  of  Tristan 
and  Iseult,  but  merely  a  brief  one,  dealing  with  some  episode  in  which 
Marc  and  Iseult  figured.  Novati,  Studj  di  filologia  romanza,  II, 
411  and  Rottiger,  Der  heutige  Stand  der  Tristanforschung,  pp.  28 f. 
(1897)  had  already  discerned  a  significance  in  the  absence  of  Tristan's 
name  from  Chretien's  allusion  to  his  lost  poem.  Paris's  hypothesis  is 
based  on  the  consideration  that  in  all  the  literature  of  the  Middle 
Ages  there  is  no  allusion  to  a  Tristan  poem  by  Chretien.  We  have, 
however,  no  episodic  poems  from  Chretien's  pen,  and  it  seems  to  me 
more  likely  that  he  planned  a  long   poem  on  Tristan   and  Iseult,  but 


156  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Bedier  has  reconstructed  the  narrative  of  this  primitive  Tristan 
by  the  comparative  method,  and  so  has  Golther.    Their  respective 


failed  to  complete  it,  as  he  later  failed  to  complete  his  Lancelot  (to 
say  nothing  of  the  Perceval)  —  only  in  the  case  of  this  earlier  com- 
position he  never  put  his  work  into  circulation,  recognizing  it  -  as  im- 
mature. —  In  Paul's  Grundriss  der  germanischen  Philologie  II, 
1,  459  (1890)  J.  te  Winkel  conjectures  that  there  was  a  (lost)  Dutch 
translation  of  Chretien's  Tristan,  hut  gives  no  reasons  for  this  con- 
jecture. 

In  the  Roman  de  Renard,  Branch  II,  there  is  an  allusion  to 
a  lost  Tristan  poem  by  a  certain  La  Chievre  and  in  a  conte  devot 
(Foerster  Festschrift,  Halle,  1902)  there  is  a  similar  allusion  to  this 
lost  poem  —  only  its  author's  name  is  here  given  in  the  Picard  form, 
Li  Kievres.  The  poem,  of  whose  contents  we  know  nothing,  was 
probably  composed  in  the  twelfth  century  and  its  author  should,  doubt- 
less, be  identified  with  the  lyric  poet,  Robert  La  Chievre  of  Rheims. 
On  these  subjects  cp.  Grbber's  Grundriss,  Band  II,  AbteilungI,  pp.  494, 
671,  and  G.Paris,  op.  cit.  p.  299. 

In  1.  2119  of  his  Tristan,  Thomas  appeals  to  "Breri"  as  his 
authority  for  representing  that  Tristan  sent  Kaherdin,  and  not  Governal, 
as  his  messenger  to  Iseult  on  a  certain  occasion.  G.  Paris,  Romania, 
VIII,  425  ff.  (1879)  identified  this  "Breri"  with  "famosus  ille  fabulator 
Bledhericus,  qui  tempora  nostra  paulo  praevenit",  of  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  Descriptio  Kambriae,  ch.  XVII,  in  Vol.  VI  (London,  1868) 
of  that  writer's  Works  edited  for  the  Rolls  Series  by  J.  F.  Dimock. 
As  Paris,  himself,  however,  says,  Thomas  does  not  hereby  imply  that 
he  is  using  a  book  by  Breri,  but  is  merely  appealing  to  the  authority 
of  a  person  of  that  name  who  is  said  to  know  more  about  British 
history  than  anybody  else.  "Breri"  and  "Bledhericus"  are,  indeed, 
probably  the  same  name  and  Paris's  identification  of  the  persons  con- 
cerned is  a  priori  admissible.  The  identification  was  favored,  also, 
by  H.  Zimmer,  Gottingische  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  Oct.  1,  1890, 
p.  805,  note,  and  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XIII1,  84,  (1891).  Never- 
theless, Thomas's  appeal  to  Breri  is,  no  doubt,  merely  one  of  the  in- 
numerable instances  in  mediaeval  literature  of  a  writer's  bolstering  up 
his  narrative  by  the  citation  of  fictitious  authorities.  He  puts  off  on 
Breri  the  responsibility  for  innovations  in  the  story  which  are  really, 
his  own.  Cp.  Muret,  Romania,  XVII,  608 f.  For  a  full  discussion 
of  the  Breri  question  cp.  Bedier,  II,  95  ff.  He  lists  p.  95,  note  1, 
the  chief  previous  discussions  of  the  subject.  Add  J.  L.  Weston, 
Romania,  XXXIH;  334 ff.  (1904),  who  identifies  Thomas's  Breri 
with  the  Bleheris  (Blihos-Bleheris)  of  the  additions  made  to  Chre- 
tien's Perceval  —  also,  W.  Golther,   Tristan  und  Isolde,  pp.   139  f. 


Tristan  157 

reconstructions  do  not  differ  in  essentials,  so  that  the  task  of  the 
Tristan  student  at  the  present  time  consists  mainly  in  the  study 
of  the  sources  of  this  hypothetical  romance,  as  reconstructed  by 
these  scholars. 

The  materials  which  form  the  basis  of  these  reconstructions 
are.  1.  The  Tristan-poem  of  the  Anglo-Norman  poet,  Thomas, 
composed  somewhere  between  1155  and  1170.6   2.  The  fragments 


(Leipzig,  1907),  who  points  out  that  Thomas,  in  the  passage  referred 
to  above,  cites  Breri  as  a  great  authority  on  British  history,  yet, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  derives  all  his  knowledge  of  that  history  from 
Wace.  Very  important  is  L.  Foulet,  "Thomas  and  Marie  in  their 
relation  to  the  conteurs,"  MLN,  XXIII,  205ff.  (1908).  Foulet  shows 
that  Thomas's  reference  to  the  "conteurs",  to  whose  varying  accounts 
he  opposes  the  authority  of  Breri,  is  really  a  "meaningless  mannerism", 
copied  from  Marie  de  France,  and  does  not  imply  any  knowledge  of 
oral  traditions  concerning  Tristan. 

We  shall  have  to  return  to  this  mysterious  Breri  in  the  discussion 
of  the  continuations  to  Chretien's  Perceval. 

6  The  upward  limit  is  fixed  by  the  author's  use  of  Wace's  Brut, 
the  lower  by  his  influence  on  Chretien's  Cliges.  F.  Lot,  Romania, 
XXVII;  42  (1898),  called  attention  to  the  first  point,  G.  Paris,  Jour- 
nal des  Savants  for  July,  1902,  pp.  354ff.  to  the  latter.  For  a  full 
discussion  of  the  subject  cp.  Bedier,  I,  37  ff.  M.  Wilmotte,  U  evolution 
du  roman  francais,  p.  67  (Brussels,  1903)  and  W.  Foerster,  Cliges*, 
pp.  LXVIff.  (Halle,  1910;  have  disputed  Paris's  proofs  as  to  the 
priority  of  Thomas's  Tristan  over  the  Cliges,  on  the  ground  that 
Chretien  and  Thomas  may  have  been  drawing  from  a  common  source 
(one  of  the  lost  Tristan  poems),  in  the  cases  where  Paris  assumes 
imitation  of  the  latter  by  the  former.  The  question  is  difficult  to  decide, 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  Thomas  would  hardly  have  appropriated  from 
a  predecessor  so  distinctive  a  play  on  words  as  amer:  mer. 

The  limits  of  date  would  be  still  further  narrowed,  if  we  could 
accept  S.  Singer's  contention,  "Thomas,  Tristan,  und  Benoit  de  Saint 
Maure,"  Zs.  f.  rom.  Phil.  XXXIII,  729ff.  (1909),  that  the  Roman 
de  Troie  influenced  Thomas's  Tristan;  for  the  former  was  written 
about  1165.  Singer  compares  especially  the  description  of  the  loves 
of  Rivalen  and  Blanchefleur,  Bedier,  I,  12ff.,  with  those  of  Achilles 
and  Polyxena,  R.  de  Troie,  17554ff.  But  the  matter  is  too  inde- 
finite, and  the  passage  in  Thomas,  just  named,  may  be  imitated  from 
some  other  romance  embodying  the  new  spirit  of  the  amour  courtois. 
Singer,    himself,    compares,    also,    Gottfried,   11,   16478ff.    (which    goes 


158  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  a  French  poem  which  is,  at  least  in  part,  by  a  poet  of  Normandy 
named   Beroul,7    coupled  with  the  Middle  High  German    poem 


back,  doubtless,  to  Thomas)  with  Eneas,  9885  ff.  (eye  belongs  to  love, 
hand  to  grief). 

Traces  of  the  influence  of  the  Disciplina  Clericalis  in  Thomas 
throw  no  light  on  the  subject  of  date,  since  the  author  of  that  work, 
Petrus  Alfonsi,  flourished  in  the  early  part  of  the  twelfth  century. 
Cp.,  on  this  influence,  A.  Hilka,  "Der  Tristanroman  des  Thomas  und 
die  Disciplina  Clericalis,"  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XLV1,  38 ff.  (1917). 

That  Thomas  was  not  identical  with  the  poet  of  the  same  name 
who  wrote  Horn  et  Rimenhild  has  been  shown  by  W.  Soderhjelm, 
"Sur  l'identite  du  Thomas,  auteur  de  Tristan,  et  du  Thomas,  auteur 
de  Horn",  Romania,  XV,  175 ff.  (1886).  The  identification  of  our 
Anglo-Norman  Thomas  with  Thomas  of  Erceldoune  is,  of  course,  merely 
the  individual  fancy  of  the  author  of  the  English  Sir  Tristrem. 

Novati,  Studj  di  filologia  rornanza,  II,  403,  note  3,  conjectures 
that  Thomas,  author  of  Tristan,  was  an  ecclesiastic.  There  is  no 
means  of  deciding  the  matter,  but  the  conjecture  hardly  seems  probable. 

7  The  poem  has  been  preserved  in  the  unique  MS.  2171  of  the 
Bibliotheque  Nationale  and  was  edited  by  H.  von  der  Hagen  in  Vol.  II 
of  his  edition  of  Gottfried  von  Strassburg  (Breslau,  1823)  and  by 
F.  Michel  in  his  edition  of  the  Tristan  fragments  I,  Iff.  (London  and 
Paris,  1835).  The  authoritative  editions,  however,  are  E.  Muret's  1. 
Le  roman  de  Tristan  par  Beroul  et  un  anonyme  (Paris,  1903,  for 
the  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Frangais)  and  2.  Beroul,  le  roman 
de  Tristan,  poeme  du  XII6  si&cle  (Paris,  1913,  in  Les  Classiques 
fiancais  du  moyen  age).  LI.  1268  and  1790,  the  poet  calls  himself 
Berox  (nominative  form).  Down  to  1.  2754  the  narrative  accords 
closely  with  that  of  Eilhart.  Not  so  with  11.  3028—4485  (end),  nor 
with  11.  2767  —  3031,  which  latter  connects  the  two  principal  divisions 
of  the  poem.  In  his  first  edition  of  Beroul  (Paris,  1903)  Muret,  pp. 
LXVff.,  concluded  with  G.  Paris  and  others  that  Beroul  II  (11.  3028 
—  4485)  was  by  a  different  hand  from  Beroul  I  (11.  1  —  2754)  and  that 
the  two  were  connected  by  still  a  third  hand.  Beroul  II,  he  observes, 
is  grosser  and  more  barbarous,  is  not  marked  by  the  same  literary  know- 
ledge or  influences  of  chivalrous  courtesy.  In  his  second  edition  (Paris, 
1913)  he  repeats  this  opinion,  though  with  some  hesitation  (pp.  VIII ff.), 
being  affected,  it  would  seem,  by  Bedier's  view  (Legendes  Epiques, 
III,  399),  that  the  whole  of  the  Beroul  fragment  is  by  one  person. 
Heinzel  (Zs.  f.  d.  Altertum,  XIV)  had  maintained,  as  no  one  would 
now,  that  it  consisted  of  nineteen  different  lays  by  different  authors. 
Bedier's  view  seems  to  me,  the  most  likely.  —  The  Beroul  Tristan 
was  undoubtedly  addressed   to   an    audience   of   lower   social   position 


Tristan  159 

on  Tristan  by  Eilhart  von  Oberge.8  Both  belong  to  the  closing 
years  of  the  twelfth  century  and  both  draw  evidently  from  the 
same  source  —  a  lost  derivative  of  the  primitive  Tristan?  3.  Por- 

than  Thomas's  poem.  It  is  a  jongleur's  version.  There  is  nothing, 
however,  to  support  the  view,  formerly  held,  that  it  was  older  than 
Thomas. 

The  upward  limit  of  date  for  Beroul  II,  is  fixed  by  an  allusion 
(1.  3853)  to  the  epidemic  of  leprosy  which  raged  among  the  crusaders 
at  Acre,  1190 — 1.  This  part  of  the  poem  probably  falls  in  the  last 
decade  of  the  twelfth  century.  Muret  (p.  LXIV  of  his  first  edition) 
assumes  that  Beroul  I  was  not  earlier  than  1165  or  1170.  There  is 
no  evidence,  however,  to  prove  that  this  part  of  the  poem  was  not 
composed  substantially  at  the  same  time  as  Beroul  II,  granting  even 
that  the  two  parts  were  by  different  authors. 

8  Edited  *  by  Franz  Lichtenstein  (Strassburg,  1877).  In  the  ex- 
tant MSS.  Eilhart's  poem  has  been  subjected  to  changes.  On  this 
subject  cp.  especially  E.  Muret,  "Eilhart  d'Oberg  et  sa  source  franchise", 
Romania,  XVI,  287ff.  (1887)  and  G.  Schoepperle,  II,  476ff.  Between 
these  two  discussions  E.  Gierach,  "Zur  Sprache  von  Eilhart's  Tristrant", 
Prager  Deutsche  Studien,  IV  (1908),  had  shown  that  the  Czech  version 
of  Eilhart  did  not  have  the  importance  for  the  reconstruction  of  Eil- 
hart's text  that  Knieschek  and  Muret  attributed  to  it.  Knieschek  trans- 
lated the  Czech  version  into  German,  Zs.f.  d.  Altertum,  XXVIII,  261  ff. 

Eilhart  composed  his  poem  probably  between  1185  and  1189. 
Cp.  Gierach,  op.  cit.  pp.  254 f.  When  Muret,  Romania,  XVI,  3611, 
suggests  that  the  author  of  his  source  was  Li  Kievres,  this  is  pure 
conjecture. 

Recently  a  fragmentary  twelfth  century  MS.  of  Eilhart's  Tristrant 
—  now  in  the  (formerly)  Royal  Library  at  Berlin  —  has  been  dis- 
covered. It  contains  461  lines,  corresponding  to  11.  7061  ff.  of  Lichten- 
stein's  edition,  and  has  been  edited  by  H.  Degering.  "Neue  Funde 
aus  dem  z  wolf  ten  Jahrhundert:  Ein  Bruchstiick  der  Urfassung  von  Eil- 
harts  Tristrant",  PBB,  XLI,   513ff.  (1916). 

9  Like  Golther,  p.  59,  Miss  Gertrude  Schoepperle,  Romania, 
XXXIX;  277ff.  (1910)  and  Tristan  and  Isolt,  pp.  72ff.  (Frank- 
fort and  London,  1913),  disputes  the  existence  of  this  hypothetical 
intermediate  derivative  (the  y  of  Bedier's  stemma)  and  derives  both 
Eilhart  and  Beroul  direct  from  the  primitive  Tristan  poem.  In  my 
review  of  her  book,  MLN,  XXIX,  213ff.  (1914),  however,  I  have 
pointed  out  the  improbability  of  her  derivation.  So,  too,  Nitze,  JEGc 
Ph.  XIII,  444ff.  (1914).  Muret,  in  his  review  of  Golther's  book, 
Zs.f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXVH2,  167ff.  (1911),  has  adopted  Golther's 
and  Miss  Schoepperle's  conclusions  in  regard  to  this  matter,  but  adds 


160  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tions  of  the  French  prose  Tristan  which,  in  its  earliest  form, 
is  dated  by  Loseth  (p.  XXIV)  between  1215  and  1230  and  by 
Bedier  (II,  309)  about  1230.10  4.  Two  short  French  poems  each 
called  La  Folie  Tristan:  One  (the  Oxford  version)  was  the  pro- 
duction of  an  Anglo-Norman  poet  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  twelfth 

no  new  arguments.  Ibid,  he  contends  that  the  author  of  the  primi- 
tive Tristan  merely  combined  Celtic  (insular)  traditions  concerning 
Tristan. 

Bedier's  reconstruction  has  been  criticised  by  Jakob  Kelemina, 
Untersuchungen  zur  Tristansage  (Leipzig,  1910),  and  by  Muret  and 
Miss  Schoepperle  loc.  cit.  —  also,  by  R.  Zenker  in  his  "Zum  Ursprung 
der  Tristansage,"  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXV,  715ff.  (1911)  —  espe- 
cially, pp.  728 ff.  —  and  again  in  Romanische  Forschungen,  XXIX, 
328ff.  (1911).  Kelemina  and  Miss  Schoepperle  complain  that  the 
French  scholar  does  not  sufficiently  recognize  cross  influences  between 
the  extant  versions,  and  Zenker  offers  the  same  criticism,  though  in 
milder  terms  Zenker,  accordingly,  does  not  accept  the  lost  primitive 
Tristan  poem  as  the  sole  source  of  Eilhart  and  the  prose  Tristan. 
What  he  says  of  the  partial  dependence  of  the  prose  on  Beroul  and 
Thomas  is,  doubtless,  true.  A  romance  on  Tristan,  written  so  late  as 
the  prose  (circa  1220)  could  hardly  escape  such  influences.  —  Kele- 
mina, on  the  other  hand,  denies  altogether  the  possibility  of  recon- 
structing an  Ur-Tristan  and  takes  the  ground  that  already  in  the 
pre-literary  period  of  the  development  of  the  Tristan  legend  there 
were  two  lines  of  tradition,  corresponding  roughly  to  the  Beroul  and 
Thomas  forms  of  the  story,  respeetively.  His  theory,  however,  has 
found  no  adherents. 

10  The  passages  in  question  are  preserved  only  in  MS.  103  (Bibl. 
Nat.)  and  are  printed  by  Bedier,  II,  32 Iff.  See,  also,  his  article,  "La 
mort  de  Tristan  et  d'Iseut  d'apres  le  manuscrit  fr.  103  de  la  Bibli- 
otheque  Nationale  compare  au  poeme  allemand  d'Eilhart  d'Oberg," 
Bomania,  XV,  481  ff.  (1886).  The  relation  of  these  passages,  how- 
ever, to  the  primitive  Tristan  is  somewhat  uncertain.  They  were 
late  modifications,  doubtless,  of  the  prose  Tristan  under  the  influence 
of  a  poetic  version  —  but  of  which  one?  According  to  W.  Rottiger, 
Der  heutige  Stand  der  Tristanforschung,  p.  26  (Hamburg,  1897), 
it  was  a  compilation  similar  to  the  source  of  Eilhart  and  Beroul. 
Miss  Schoepperle,  I,  10,  conjectures,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  epi- 
sodes were  drawn  from  the  source  of  the  primitive  Tristan,  which 
seems,  however,  very  improbable. 

It  should  be  noted  that  G.  Paris  once  held  the  opinion  (cp.  Ro- 
mania, XV,  602),  that  an  imitation  (presumably  in  prose)  of  Chretien's 
Tristan  constituted  the  nucleus  of  the  prose  Tristan.    His  subsequent 


Tristan  161 

century,  the  other  (Berne  version)  of  a  poet  of  North- Eastern 
France,  probably  of  the  early  thirteenth  century.11 


theory,  however,  that  Chretien  composed  only  a  brief  episodic  poem 
concerning  Tristan  implies  a  withdrawal  of  his  earlier  opinion.  In 
his  discussion  of  the  subject  Rottiger,  op.  cit.,  pp.  28  f.,  had  already 
expressed  himself  unfavorably  as  to  the  dependence  of  the  prose  ro- 
mance on  Chretien.  Loseth,  in  his  analysis  of  the  prose  Tristan, 
p.  XXV,  regards  that  work  as  based  largely  on  the  lost  poem  of  Chretien. 
For  the  closeness  of  the  prose-romanco  to  Eilhart-Beroul  cp.  Heinzel, 
Zs.  f.  d.  Altertum,  XIV,  354,  Brakelmann,  Zs.  f.  d.  Phil,  XVIII, 
87,  Muret,  Romania,  XVI,  292. 

11  The  two  Folie  Tristan's  have  the  same  general  design:  Tristan 
gains  access  to  Marc's  court  by  disguising  himself  as  a  madman  and 
in  this  disguise  gradually  reveals  himself  to  Iseult  by  recalling  the 
various  incidents  of  their  love-affair.  Both  poems  were  first  edited  by 
Francisque  Michel  in  his  Tristan:  recueil  de  ce  qui  reste  des  poemes 
relatifs  a  ses  aventures,  from  the  Berne  MS.  (No.  354  of  the  Berne 
Library),  I,  215ff.,  and  the  Bodleian  MS.  (Douce  d  6)  II,  89ff.  (1835). 
The  second  of  these  versions  was,  also,  edited  by  H.  Morf,  Romania, 
XV.  558 ff.  (1886).  The  standard  edition  of  both  poems  now,  however, 
is  that  of  J.  Bedier,  Les  deux  podmes  de  la  Folie  Tristan,  Iff. 
(Paris,  1907,  for  the  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Francois).  The  Ox- 
ford Folie  is  plainly  dependent  on  Thomas;  that  of  Berne  is  closely 
related  to  Beroul,  but,  according  to  Bedier,  pp.  82  f.  not  directly  de- 
pendent. On  the  subject  see,  still  further,  W.  Lutoslawski,  "Les  Folies 
de  Tristan,"  Romania,  XV,  511  ff.  (1886)  and  E.  Hoepffner,  "Das 
Verhaltnis  der  Berner  Folie  Tristan  zu  Berols  Tristandichtung,"  Zs. 
f.  rom.  Ph.  XXXIX,  62ff.  (1917),  and  "Die  Berner  und  die  Ox- 
forder  Folie,"  ibid.,  XXXIX,  551ff.  (1918),  672ff.  (1919).  Accor- 
ding to  Hoepffner,  the  Berne  version  follows  closely  an  hypothetical 
lost  poem  (X),  derived  from  Beroul.  On  the  other  hand,  the  author 
of  the  Oxford  version,  he  thinks,  recast  this,  using  very  fully  in  the 
process  Thomas's  poem  and  aiming  at  the  production  of  a  romance  in 
the  courtly  style.  Ibid.  XL,  "Die  Folie  Tristan  und  die  Odyssee", 
Hoepffner  has  discussed  the  motif  in  the  French  Folies  as  compared 
with  the  similar  one  in  the  Odyssey. 

A  similar  episode  to  that  of  these  two  poems  is  found  in  the  prose 
Tristan  (cp.  Bedier's  edition  of  Thomas,  I,  372  ff.),  in  Eilhart,  11.  8695  ff., 
in  Ulrich  von  Turheim's  and  Heinrich  von  Freyberg's  continuations  to 
Gottfried  von  Strassburg. 

For  a  discussion  of  the  affiliations  of  all  the  various  versions, 
see  W.  Lutoslawski's    above-mentioned   article    and  Bedier,   II,  287 ff. 


162  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

The  problem  of  reconstruction  was  rendered  more  difficult 
by  the  fact  that  only  fragments  of  Thomas's  poem  in  its  original 
French  form  have  come  down  to  modern  times,  and  so  this  poem 
itself,  in  the  missing  portion,  had  first  to  be  reconstructed  from 
the  versions  in  foreign  languages  which  are  known  to  be  based 
upon  it  —  viz:  the  Scandinavian  prose  Tristan  saga,  Gottfried 
von  Strassburg's  Tristan,  the  Middle  English  Sir  Tristrem,  the 
Folie  Tristan  of  the  Oxford  MS.,  and  the  Italian  La  Tavola  Ri- 
tond-a.12     This  task  has  been    accomplished  in  masterly  fashion 

Bedier's  stemma  (p.  296)  is  preferable  to  Lutoslawski's  (p.  287).  Some- 
what different  is  W.  Golther,  p.  219,  note  1. 

Tristan  appears  elsewhere  in  other  disguises — namely,  as  1.  leper, 
Thomas,  11.  1773ff.  2.  penitent,  ibid.,  11,  2061  ff.  3.  minstrel,  Her- 
bert's continuation  to  Chretien's  Perceval,  Romania,  XXXVI,  497 ff. 
4.  monk,  Middle  High  German  poem  (based,  no  doubt,  on  a  lost  French 
original),  Tristan  als  Monch,  edited  by  H.  Paul,  Sitzungsberichte  der 
Milnchener  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften  for  1895,  pp.  317ff.,  from 
the  two  extant  MSS.  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  author,  it  seems, 
was  an  Alsatian. 

As  Golther,  p.  29,  has  remarked,  these  stories  of  Tristan  seeking 
his  lady-love  in  various  disguises  were  probably  due,  in  the  first  in- 
stance, to  the  influence  of  the  legend  of  Solomon. 

13  Of  Thomas's  French  original  only  3144  lines,  all  told,  are  extant. 
Following  are  the  works  on  which  reconstructions  of  the  remainder 
of  Thomas's  poem  have  to  be  based:  1.  The  Old  Norse  prose  saga 
(dating  from  1226),  edited  by  Brynjulfson,  Saga  af  Tristram  ok 
Isondar  (Copenhagen,  1878)  and  E.  Kolbing  Tristrams  Saga  ok 
Isondar  (Heilbronn,  1878).  2.  Gottfried  von  Strassburg's  poem,  Tristan 
(early  thirteenth  century),  which  has  been  often  edited  (cp.  list  in 
Golther  p.  165,  note  1)  —  last  by  K.  Marold  (Leipzig,  1912).  Marold 
furnishes  the  best  text,  but  the  commentary  has  not  appeared.  A.  Bossert, 
Tristan  et  Iseult,  podme  de  Gotfrit  de  Strasbourg,  compare  a 
d 'autres  poemes  sur  le  meme  sujet  (Paris,  1865),  was  the  first  to  show 
that  Gottfried's  poem  was  based  on  Thomas.  For  the  best  studies  of 
the  relation  of  the  German  poet  to  his  original  see  W.  Hertz,  Tristan 
und  Isolde,6,  pp.  473f.  (Stuttgart  and  Berlin,  1907),  F.  Piquet, 
L' originalite  de  Gottfried  de  Strasbourg  (Lille,  1905)  and  Bedier, 
II,  76ff.  (1905). 

Of  minor  importance  are  the  articles  in  a  controversy  on  this 
subject  in  Pfeiffer's  Germania  between  0.  Glode  (who  claims  greater 
independence  for  Gottfried)  and  E.  Kolbing:  cp.  that  journal,  Glode 
XXXIII,   17ff.    (1888),    XXXV,    344f.    (1890)    and   Kolbing,    XXXIV, 


Tristan  163 

by  Bedier  in  the  First  Volume  of  his  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan, 
so  that  we  have  here  a  solid  basis  for  the  reconstruction  of  the 
primitive  poem. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  sources  of  this  hypothetical  romance, 
from  which  the  whole  mediaeval  tradition  concerning  Tristan 
flows,13   it  will    be  necessary,   as   in   previous   cases,   to  indicate 


187  ff.  (1889).  3.  The  English  Sir  Tristrem  (probably,  end  of  the 
thirteenth  century)  edited  by  E.  Kolbing  (Heilbronn,  1882)  and^  by 
G.  P.  McNeill  (Edinburgh,  1886,  for  the  Scottish  Text  Society).  4,'La 
Folie  Tristan  (Oxford  MS.),  edited  by  Bedier  (Paris,  1907).  5.  La 
Tavola  Ritonda  (thirteenth  century),  edited  by  F.  L.  Polidori,  2  vols. 
(Bologna,  1864 — 5).  Chapters  63 — 67  are  based  on  Thomas's  poem 
for  this  part  of  the  narrative  (Marc  spies  upon  Tristan  and  Iseult  from 
the  pine-tree,  but  is  observed,  etc.).  On  this  subject  see  E.  G.  Parodi, 
II  Tristano  Riccardiano,  pp.  LXXXHff.  (Bologna,  1896)  and  Bedier, 
II,  91.  The  text  edited  by  Parodi  is  the  chief  source  of  La  Tavola 
Ritonda. 

13  In  the  Middle  Ages  no  branch  of  the  matiere  de  Bretagne, 
perhaps,  won  such  popularity  as  the  story  of  Tristan  and  Iseult.  For 
allusions  to  the  same  in  mediaeval  literature  cp.  L.  Sudre,  "Les  allusions 
a  la  legende  de  Tristan  dans  la  litterature  du  moyen  age,"  Romania, 
XV,  534 ff.  (1886)  and  Bedier,  II,  397 ff.  For  allusions  in  Italian 
literature  cp.,  more  particularly,  A.  Graf,  "Appunti  per  la  storia  del 
ciclo  brettone,"  Giornale  Storico  delta  Letteratura  Italiana,  V,  81  ff. 
and  Mitif  leggende  e  superstizioni  nel  medio  evo,  II,  339ff.  (Turin, 
1893),  and,  above  all,  Elvira  Sommer-Tolomei,  „La  leggenda  di  Tristano 
in  Italia,"  Rivista  d! Italia  for  July,  1910,  pp.  73 ff.  P.  127  of  the 
last-named  article,  some  additional  minor  contributions  to  the  subject 
of  Tristan  and  Iseult  in  Italy  are  named.  The  fourteenth  century 
Italian  poem,  La  Morte  di  Tristano,  is  still  unpublished.  For  an 
account  of  it  see  G.  Bertoni,  Fanfulla  delta  Domenica,  nos.  43,  46, 
48  (Rome,  1915).  It  is  of  popular  origin.  —  For  similar  allusions 
in  Spanish  literature  see  A.  Bonilla  y  San  Martin,  Libro  del  esforgado 
cauallero  Don  Tristan  de  Leonis;  pp.  XXVIff.  (Madrid,  1912). 

For  the  literature  of  allusions  to  Tristan  and  Iseult  in  German 
writings  of  the  Middle  Ages  cp.  Golther  p.  211,  note  1. 

The  popularity  of  the  Tristan  romances  (especially  the  Eilhart- 
Beroul  tradition)  is  reflected,  also,  in  the  use  which  is  made  of  them 
in  the  decorative  arts  (apart  from  miniatures  in  MSS.).  Examples 
of  such  use  are  found  in  all  the  principal  European  countries,  — 
particularly,  from  the  fourteenth  century.  For  the  literature  of  this 
subject  see  Hertz,  pp.  475 f.,  541,  Golther,  pp.  408 ff.  and,  above  all, 


164  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

briefly  the  succession  of  episodes  which  made  up   the  romance. 
The    reconstructions    of  Bedier    (II,  194  ff.)    and    Golther    (pp. 


R.  S.  Loomis  in  "A  Sidelight  on  the  Tristan  of  Thomas,"  Modern  Lan- 
guage Review y  X,  304  ff.  (1915)  —  an  article  which  corrects  Bedier's 
reconstruction  of  Thomas  in  three  minor  details  —  and  "Illustrations 
of  Medieval  Romance  on  Tiles  from  Chertsey  Abhey,"  University  of 
Illinois  Studies  in  Language  and  Literature,  Vol.  II,  No.  2  (1916). 
The  tiles  in  question  are  both  the  earliest  (circa  1270)  and  the  finest 
specimens  of  decorative  illustrations  drawn  from  the  Tristan  romances. 
In  the  second  of  his  above-mentioned  studies,  Loomis  gives  plates 
(with  identifications  and  discussions)  of  the  tiles  (34,  in  all).  They 
are  based  on  Thomas.  In  this  same  study  he  gives,  also,  full  indi- 
cations of  the  very  extensive  literature  on  the  subject  of  the  Tristan 
romances  in  the  decorative  arts.  Cp.  now,  also,  the  same  scholar's 
articles:  "The  Tristran  and  Perceval  Caskets,"  RR,  VIII,  196ff.  (1917) 
and  "Notes  on  the  Tristan  of  Thomas,"  MLR,  XIV,  38ff.  (1919;. 
The  first  describes  a  Tristan  casket  in  the  Hermitage  Museum  at 
Petrograd;  the  second  makes  additions  to  the  author's  previous  articles 
—   also,  some  corrections. 

Of  especial  interest  is  Pio  Rajna's  description  of  two  coverlets 
(dating  from  about  1400),  embroidered  with  figures  from  the  legend 
of  Tristan.  See  his  article  "Intorno  a  due  antiche  coperte  con  figura- 
zioni  tratte  dalle  storie  di  Tristano,"  Romania,  XLII,  517ff.  (1913). 
Th6  legends  accompanying  the  figures  are  in  the  Sicilian  dialect  and 
the  ultimate  source  of  the  scenes  is  the  prose  Tristan,  the  immediate 
source  some  Italian  version  of  that  romance.  The  plates  in  Rajna's 
article  reproduce  the  figures  in  the  coverlets. 

Localizations  from  the  Tristan  poems  in  Dublin  and  its  vicinity 
from  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century  are  noted  in  letters  to  The 
Athenaeum  for  Feb  21  and  April  26,  1913.  Cp.,  too,  the  issues  for 
May  10  and  17,  1913.  The  writers  naively  cite  these  localizations 
as  proofs  of  the  actual  existence  of  the  characters  concerned.  "Chapelizod,r 
(=  Iseult's  Chapel),  as  the  name  of  a  village  near  Dublin,  persists 
even  to  this  day. 

From  the  romances,  the  name,  Tristan,  passed  into  the  general 
nomenclature  of  France,  England,  etc.  Students  of  the  romances 
appear  to  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  Tristan  is  recorded  as  a 
French  surname  as  early  as  1207.  In  that  year  a  person  of  this 
name,  whose  Christian  name  seems  to  have  been  Arnoul,  bought  a 
property  in  the  neighborhood  of  Soissons.  More  distinguished  than 
himself  was  one  of  his  sons,  Pierre  Tristan,  (Tristran)  —  or  in  Latin, 
Petrus  Tristanides  —  who  saved  the  life  of  Philip  Augustus  in  the 
battle  of  Bouvines  (1214).    Cp.  Oeuvres  de  Rigord  et  de  Guillaume 


Tristan  165 

40  ff.)  do  not  differ  very  materially.14  The  following  succinct  out- 
line which  is  based  on  the  former,  represents,  then,  in  essentials, 
with  virtual  certainty,  the  content  of  the  lost  French  romance: 

le  Breton,  I,  282  (2  vols.,  Paris,  1882—1885),  edited  by  H.  F. 
Delaborde  for  the  Societe  de  l'Histoire  de  la  France.  We  have, 
also,  a  record  of  Pierre's  purchasing  a  piece  of  property  in  1207 
—  from  the  convent  of  St.  Magloire  de  Paris.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  was  still  living  in  1249.  Since  he  was  of  age  in  1207,  he  could 
hardly  have  been  born  later  than  1185  and  his  father,  who  bore  the 
same  name,  is  not  likely  to  have  been  born  later  than  1165.  If  he 
(Arnoul),  in  turn,  inherited  the  surname  from  his  father,  we  should 
have  Tristan  occurring  as  the  proper  name  of  an  actual  person  in  the 
first  half  of  the  twelfth  century.  I  see  no  way,  however,  of  deter- 
mining which  of  Pierre's  progenitors  was  the  first  to  assume  the  sur- 
name. For  abundant  documentary  evidence  relating  to  this  family 
cp.  Henri  Stein:  „ Pierre  Tristan^  chambellan  de  Philippe  Auguste  et 
sa  famille,"  Bibliothhque  de  VEcole  des  Chartes,  LXXVII,  135ff. 
(1918).  Stein  does  not  mention  the  legendary  Tristan  in  connection 
with  the  family. 

14  For  an  enumeration  of  the  differences  cp.  Golther,  pp.  59  ff. 
I  have  given  my  reasons,  MLN,  XXIX,  214ff.  for  not  accepting  with 
Golther  (p.  59)  and  Miss  Schoepperle  (pp.  75  ff.)  certain  features  of 
Eilhart  and  Beroul  as  belonging  to  the  lost  Tristan  poem:  In  these 
poems  (as  against  Thomas)  there  is  an  abatement  in  the  influence  of 
the  love-potion  after  the  lapse  of  three  (Beroul)  or  four  (Eilhart)  years, 
whereupon  the  lovers  confess  to  a  hermit  (Ogrin)  in  the  forest  and  on 
his  advice  it  is  agreed  that  Iseult  shall  return  to  Marc.  Marc  takes 
her  back,  but  banishes  Tristan.  In  the  earliest  form  of  the  story, 
however,  the  efficacy  of  the  love-potion  obviously  could  not  have  been 
limited  as  to  time  and  it  is  not  so  limited  in  Thomas  (nor  in  the 
prose  Tristan),  so  that  it  is  highly  improbable  that  in  the  intermediate 
version  (the  primitive  Tristan  poem)  there  was  any  such  limitation. 
It  is  principally  on  account  of  these  views  regarding  this  feature  and 
the  changes  in  the  narrative  that  are  corollary  to  it  that  Golther 
(p.  103)  and  Miss  Schoepperle  (pp.  72  ff.)  consider  the  narrative  of 
Eilhart   as  differing  very  slightly  from  that  of  the  lost  Tristan  poem. 

Another  point  in  which  Eilhart's  narrative  shows  degradation  is 
in  dropping  the  motif  of  jealousy,  which  is  necessary  to  explain  the 
conduct  of  Iseult  of  Brittany  at  the  end  of  the  story,  in  the  incident 
of  the  sails.  Miss  Schoepperle,  pp.  96 ff.  and  in  the  Zs.f.  d.  Ph., 
XLIII,  453ff.  (1911)  "Isolde  Weisshand  am  Sterbebette  Tristan's," 
argues  that  she  is  jealous  in  Eilhart,  too,  but  the  argument  does  not  convince. 

Altogether,  Bedier's  stemma  of  the  Tristan  versions  seems  to  me 
to  be  the  soundest  that  has  yet  been  offered. 


166  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Tristan  was  the  son  of  Bivalen,  King  of  Loenois  (in  some 
versions,  Armonie  or  Parmanie)  in  Great  Britain  and  of  Blanche- 
fleur,  sister  of  Marc,  King  of  Cornwall.  Blanchefleur  dies  in 
the  act  of  giving  birth  to  Tristan,  whose  name15  was  suggested 
by  the  affliction  that  accompanies  his  birth.  A  knight,  named 
Gorvenal,  instructed  the  young  Tristan  in  the  accomplishments 
of  knighthood,  and  when  his  charge  was  fifteen  years  old,  they 
set  out  for  Cornwall  and  arrive  at  Marc's  court.  Although  Tristan 
does  not  disclose  his  identity,  he  becomes  a  favorite  at  court.  In 
the  course  of  time  an  opportunity  arises  which  enables  him  to 
show  his  prowess.  A  great  knight  called  Morholt,  brother-in-law 
of  the  Irish  king,  comes  from  Ireland  to  exact  the  tribute  of 
every  third  child  of  fifteen  years  old,  but  he  was  ready  to  settle  the 
matter  with  any  suitable  Cornish  champion.  The  Cornish  knights 
hold  back,  but  Tristan  undertakes  the  combat,  after  having  first 
had  himself  knighted.  The  duel  takes  place  on  the  isle  of  Saint- 
Samson  and  only  the  combatants  are  present.  Morholt  is  mor- 
tally wounded,  but  escapes  to  his  boat  with  a  fragment  of  Tristan's 
sword  in  his  head.  He  expired  before  he  could  reach  Ireland; 
nevertheless,  his  niece,  Iseult,  daughter  of  the  Irish  king,  kept 
the  fragment  of  Tristan's  sword. 

Tristan,  too,  had  been  wounded  in  the  combat  and  his  con- 
dition grows  constantly  worse.  In  despair,  he  finally  has  himself 
put  in  a  boat  which  is  pushed  out  to  sea.16  He  carries  his  harp 
with  him.  The  boat  drifts  to  the  Irish  coast,  and  the  king,  hearing 
Tristan  playing  on  his  harp,  takes  him  ashore,  and  Iseult,  who 
is  skilled  in  the  healing  art,  cures  him.  He  calls  himself  Tantris, 
and  so  eludes  identification.    He  then  returns  to  Cornwall. 

King  Marc  had  always  refused  to  marry,  but  one  day  a 
swallow  brings  to  his  hall  some  strands  of  a  woman's  hair  as  beauti- 


16  Cp.  French  triste  =  sad. 

16  In  the  primitive  Tristan,  the  hero,  when  he  started  on  his 
voyage,  evidently  had  no  fixed  destination  in  view.  According  to 
F.  Piquet,  "L'originalite  de  Gottfried  de  Strasbourg"  pp.  165 ft. 
(Lille,  1905),  Thomas  modified  this  and  made  Ireland  his  destination 
from  the  beginning.  For  a  refutation  of  this  opinion,  however,  cp. 
R.  S.  Loomis,  MLR,  XIV,  39ft.  (1919). 


Tristan  167 

ful  as  gold.  The  king  thought  that  he  could  rid  himself  of  the 
importunities  of  his  courtiers  by  declaring  that  he  was  willing 
to  marry  the  woman  to  whom  this  hair  belonged,  but  no  one  else. 
Tristan  goes  forth  to  discover  the  unknown  beauty  and  is  borne 
by  chance  to  Ireland.  The  king's  officer  is  sent  to  slay  him,  but 
Tristan  pretends  that  he  is  a  merchant  and  secures  a  delay.  A 
dragon  was  then  devastating  Ireland  and  the  king  promises  his 
daughter's  hand  to  any  man  that  would  kill  the  monster.  Tristan 
accomplishes  this  and  cuts  out  the  dragon's  tongue  as  a  token 
of  his  victory.  He  falls  afterwards  into  a  swoon  and  the  king's 
seneschal,  stealing  the  dragon's  tongue,  represents  himself  as  the 
victor.17  Iseult  knows,  however,  that  the  seneschal  is  a  coward, 
suspects  some  deceit,  goes  forth  with  her  mother  to  look  into  the 
matter  and  finds  Tristan.  Aided  by  her  mother,  she  heals  him, 
but  Tristan,  perceiving  her  golden  hair,  sees  that  she  is  the  woman 
for  whom  he  is  looking.  She,  however,  observes  that  the  frag- 
ment taken  from  the  dead  Morholt's  head  fits  exactly  a  gap  in 
Tristan's  sword.  She  would  have  informed  on  him,  despite  his 
prayers,  but  she  knew  that  she  would  then  be  compelled  to  marry 
the  treacherous  seneschal.  The  deceit  of  this  man  is  disclosed 
and  the  Irish  king  pardons  Tristan,  who  asks  for  Iseult's  hand 
on  behalf  of  his  uncle.  Iseult  is  sent  to  Marc  under  the  charge 
of  Tristan.  Then  follows  the  incident  of  the  fatal  love-potion. 
Iseult's  mother  had  prepared  it,  to  render  perpetual  the  love  of  her 
daughter  and  Marc,  but,  through  an  accident  on  the  voyage,  Bring- 
vain  (Brangien),  Iseult's  female  attendant,  gives  it  to  Tristan  and 
Iseult,  so  that  they  are  united  in  an  undying  passion.18   Accor- 


11  For  parallels  in  folk-tales  to  this  incident  of  the  false  seneschal 
cp.  Bolte  and  Polivka's  "Anmerkungen  zu  den  Kinder-  und  Haus- 
mdrchen  der  Briider  Grimm,"  I,  547  ft  (Leipzig,  1913). 

18  Miss  Schoepperle,  "The  Love -Potion  in  Tristan  and  Isolt," 
Romania,  XXXIX,  277ff.  (1910),  tries  to  show  that  the  motif  of 
the  love-potion  here  is  Celtic.  I  agree,  however,  with  Bedier,  II,  163ff. 
and  Golther,  p.  34,  that  it  was  introduced  into  the  legend  by  a  French 
poet  from  classical  sources. 

For  the  variant  forms  of  the  name  of  Iseult's  attendant  in  the 
different  mediaeval  versions  of  the  Tristan  story,  cp.  W.  Hertz's  Tristan 
und  Isolde  von  Gottfried  von  Strafiburg*,   p.  527   (Stuttgart   and 


168  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

dingly,  on  Iseult's  wedding  night,  Bringvain  takes  her  place  with 
Marc  and  she  remains  with  her  lover.19 

Fearing  that  Bringvain  would  betray  the  deception  prac- 
tised on  Marc,  Iseult  engages  two  men  to  murder  her.  By  a 
clever  allegory  the  girl  touches  the  hearts  of  these  men  and  they 
spare  her.  They  report  to  Iseult  that  they  have  executed  their 
commission,  but  she  exhibits  such  remorse  that  they  tell  her  the 
truth. 

One  day  an  Irish  harper  plays  at  court  on  condition  that 
Marc  will  grant  anything  he  wishes.  It  turns  out  that  he  wishes 
Iseult,  and  Marc,  though  reluctant,  is  constrained  to  comply  with 
his  promise.  The  Irishman  takes  the  queen  to  his  ship,  but  Tristan 
returns  at  this  moment  from  the  forest  and  goes  to  seek  Iseult. 
He  tells  her  captor  that  he  can  quiet  her  distress  with  his  rote.20 
He  gains  time  in  this  way,  wins  the  Irishman's  confidence,  and 
finally  manages  to  carry  off  Iseult,  flinging  back  the  taunt,  as 
he  goes,  that  the  Irishman  has  won  her  with  his  harp,  but  that 
he  has  won  her  back  with  his  rote.21 


Berlin,  1907).  It  is  hardly  open  to  doubt  that  Bringvain  was  the 
form  used  by  Thomas,  although  in  our  extant  MSS.  of  his  poem,  the 
name  sometimes  appears  in  an  altered  form.  See  on  the  subject 
W.  Golther,  Zs.f.  rom.  Ph.  XII,  352.  According  to  (x.  Paris,  Romania, 
XVIII,  323,  Brenwain  was  the  form  employed  in  the  source  (or  sources) 
of  the  Tristan  romances.  This  is,  however,  purely  hypothetical,  and 
I  have  thought  it  better  to  use  in  an  outline  even  of  the  Ur-Tristan 
the  form  of  the  name  which  is  virtually  assured  for  Thomas.  There 
is  no  agreement  as  yet  in  regard  to  the  etymology  of  this  name. 

19  For  parallels  to  this  motif  in  folk-tales  and  literature  cp., 
especially,  Hertz,  Tristan  und  Isolde*,  pp.  533 ff.,  and  P.  Arferth,  Das 
Motiv  von  der  untergeschobenen  Braut  (Rostock  Diss.  1897). 

20  The  rote  was  a  kind  of  violin,  it  seems. 

Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  417ff.?  has  shown  that  this  incident, 
doubtless,  formed  a  feature  of  the  Tristan  saga  in  its  original  Celtic 
form.  In  the  Archiv  fur  das  Studiwn  der  neueren  Sprachen, 
CXXIX,  375 ff.  (1912),  Brugger  had  already  contended  that  the  inci- 
dent was  of  Celtic  origin.  He  cites  examples  from  the  Welsh  tales, 
Kulhwch  and  Ohven  and  Pwyll  Prince  of  Dyvet  —  also,  from  the 
Irish  story  of  Mongan,  son  of  Manawyddan.  It  is  very  questionable, 
however,  whether  the  don-motif  in  Arthurian  romance  is  so  exclusively 
of  Celtic  origin  as  Brugger  believes. 


Tristan  169 

The  lovers  now  continue  their  intrigue,  but  Audret  (Andret), 
another  nephew  of  Marc's,  who  hates  Tristan,  spies  on  the  pair, 
and,  assisted  by  a  wicked  dwarf,  endeavors  to  ruin  them.  Tristan 
communicates  with  his  mistress  by  sending  inscribed  pieces  of 
wood  down  a  stream  which  flows  through  Iseult's  chamber.  They 
have  all  sorts  of  escapes.  Once  Marc  is  hidden  in  a  tree  above  them, 
listening  to  them,  but  they  observe  his  shadow  in  a  spring  and 
give  their  conversation  such  a  turn  that  he  is  deceived.  They  are, 
however,  finally  detected.  Tristan  is  sleeping  in  the  same  chamber 
with  the  king  and  queen.  The  king  by  design  leaves  the  chamber 
and  Tristan  wishes  to  join  Iseult.  The  dwarf  has  strewn  the 
floor  between  them  with  meal,  so  that  Tristan's  tracks  may  be 
shown,  but,  seeing  the  snare,  Tristan  springs  over  to  Iseult's  bed. 
He  had  lately  been  wounded,  however,  and  the  exertion  broke 
his  wound.  The  blood  accordingly  stained  both  his  bed  and  Iseult's 
and  their  guilt  was  divulged.  Tristan  escapes,  but  Marc,  who  at 
first  had  determined  to  burn  his  wife,  later  decides  to  give  her  up 
to  a  band  of  lepers.  Her  lover,  however,  rescues  her  from  this 
fate  and  they  fly  to  the  forest  and  spend  two  years  there  in  the 
enjoyment  of  each  other's  love.  One  day  Marc,  in  hunting,  came 
upon  them  asleep  in  their  hut,  but  Tristan's  sword  lay  between 
them,  which  convinced  him  of  their  innocence.22  On  awakening, 
the  lovers  observe  signs  that  Marc  had  been  there  (his  sword  and 
his  glove)  and  fly  deeper  into  the  forest. 

The  forest-life,  however,  becomes  no  longer  bearable,  and 
Tristan  and  Iseult  agree  to  part.  Tristan  threw  a  letter  into  Marc's 
chamber,  inquiring  whether  he  would  take  her  back.  By  another 
letter  Marc  signified  his  willingness  to  do  so,  provided  Tristan 
left  the  kingdom. 

Tristan  now  goes  to  Arthur's  court,  but  with  Gawain's  help 
has  another  meeting  with  his  mistress.  Arthur  hunts  near  Tin- 
tagel  and  Marc  has  to  receive  him  and  his  followers,  including 
Tristan.  To  guard  Iseult  from  Tristan,  he  has  sharp  blades  set 
near  her  bed.    Tristan  is  wounded  by  them,  but,  in  order  to  pro- 


22  For  this  common  folk-tale  motif  cp.  Hertz,  Tristan  und 
Isolde,  pp.  551ff.,  B.  Heller,  Romania,  XXXVI.  36fi,  XXXVH,  162f., 
and  Bolte  and  Polivka,  I,  554 f. 


170  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tect  him,  his  companions  feign  a  fight,  get  wounded  with  the 
same  blades,  and  so  it  is  impossible  the  next  day  to  convict  him. 
The  king  now  compels  Iseult  to  make  a  public  declaration  of  her 
innocence.  To  confirm  her  veracity,  she  will  have  to  endure  the 
test  of  holding  a  red-hot  iron  in  her  hand.  On  the  way  to  the 
place  where  the  test  is  to  be  made  Iseult  is  borne  across  a  ford 
by  Tristan  disguised  as  a  beggar.  She  swears  afterwards  that  no 
one  but  the  king  and  this  man  had  touched  her.  The  people  do 
not  see  into  the  real  significance  of  this  oath,  but  it  enables  the 
queen  to  go  through  the  test  unharmed.23 

Tristan  next  goes  to  Brittany  and  helps  Duke  Hoel  of  Carhaix 
in  his  war  with  a  rival.  The  latter  has  a  daughter  named  Iseult 
(Iseult  of  the  White  Hands  she  is  called)  and  she  is  wedded  to 
Tristan,  but  the  marriage  remains  merely  nominal,  the  husband's 
mind  still  dwelling  on  Iseult  of  Cornwall.  The  wife  lets  her  brother 
Kaherdin  know  this.  Tristan  tells  this  brother  of  the  love  of 
Iseult  of  Cornwall  for  him  and  they  go  then  to  Cornwall  together, 
where  Tristan  has  a  secret  meeting  with  Iseult.  Afterwards,  how- 
ever, through  a  misunderstanding,  Iseult  is  out  of  humor  with 
him  because  of  a  supposed  act  of  cowardice  on  his  part.  Dis- 
guised as  a  leper,  he  seeks  an  interview  with  her  to  explain,  but 
although  she  recognizes  him,  she  has  him  beaten  away.  He  returns, 
therefore,  to  Brittany  and  becomes  really  the  husband  of  the  other 
Iseult.  Iseult  of  Cornwall  now  feels  remorseful  in  regard  to  her 
lover  and  even  puts  on  haircloth.  On  hearing  the  news  of  this, 
Tristan  again  comes  from  Brittany  —  meets  her  in  secret  —  the 


23 


For  numerous  parallels  in  Oriental  literature  to  this  motif  cp. 
J.  J.  Meyer's  Isolde's  Gottesurteil  in  seiner  erotischen  Bedeutung, 
(Berlin,  1914).  For  some  additional  examples  see  Golther's  review 
of  Meyer's  book  in  the  Deutsche  Literaturzeitung,  March  14,  1914, 
and  Miss  Schoepperle,  pp.  223 ff.  Miss  Schoepperle  gives  references  to 
articles  and  books  on  the  motif,  in  general.  Bedier  II,  265,  expresses 
some  uncertainty  as  to  whether  this  episode  was  in  the  estoire.  He, 
also,  rejects  the  beautiful  incident,  told  in  some  of  the  versions,  concerning 
the  dog,  Petitcrii,  presented  by  the  King  of  Scotland  to  Tristan  and 
by  him,  in  turn,  to  Iseult.  The  sound  of  a  magic  bell  hung  about  the 
creature's  neck  had  the  power  of  dispelling  grief,  but  Iseult  would  not 
be  happy,  whilst  her  lover  was  sorrowful,  so  she  broke  the  bell. 


Tristan  171 

next  day  bears  off  the  prize  in  some  sports,  but  is  detected  by 
accident  and  escapes.  At  a  later  time,  however,  having  been  much 
altered  in  appearance  because  of  his  sufferings  from  a  wound  which 
he  had  received  in  war,  he  goes  back  to  Cornwall,  disguised  as 
a  madman,  and  carries  on  his  clandestine  amours  with  Iseult, 
until  he  is  finally  detected  and  returns  to  Brittany. 

Kaherdin  carries  on  an  intrigue  with  the  wife  of  Bedenis. 
In  the  fight  that  follows  on  account  of  this  affair  he  is  killed  and 
Tristan  severely  wounded.  Tristan  sends  to  Iseult  of  Cornwall 
to  come  and  cure  him.  It  is  agreed  that  the  ship  on  its  return 
shall  hoist  a  white  sail,  if  it  brings  her  —  otherwise  a  black  sail. 
She  comes,  but  Tristan's  wife  is  jealous  and  reports  that  the  sail 
is  black.  At  this  the  hero  dies,  and  when  Iseult  of  Cornwall  arrives, 
she  too  expires  upon  his  body.  Marc  at  last  learns  how  the  lovers 
were  bound  together  by  the  fatal  potion  and  has  them  buried 
side  by  side.  Rose-bushes  spring  up  out  of  the  two  graves  and 
intertwine  their  branches. 

Now,  the  investigations  of  Miss  Gertrude  Schoepperle24  have 
made  it  virtually  certain  that  the  starting-point  of  this  long  and 
romantic  narrative  is  a  Celtic  Aithed25  (elopement  story),  similar 
to  the  Old  Irish  story  of  Diarmaid  and  Grainne26  In  this  Irish 
story,  too,  the  hero  (Diarmaid),  under  the  influence  of  passion, 
violates  the  obligations  of  friendship  and  loyalty  and  flies  with 
the  wife  of  his  uncle  and  king  to  the  forest.  They  are  pursued  from 
place  to  place  and  have  to  endure  all  sorts  of  hardships.  Diarmaid 
and  Grainne  is  preserved  only  in  such  varying  fragmentary  and 

34  Later  Mrs.  R.  S:  Loomis.  See  her  fine  study,  Tristan  and 
Isolt,  a  Study  of  the  Sources  of  the  Romance,  2  vols.  Frankfort  and 
London,  1913.     The  pagination  of  the  volumes  is  continuous. 

28  For  a  list  of  this  class  of  Celtic  tales  cp.  Schoepperle,  II, 
393  f.  The  Aitheda  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  tales  headed  Aided 
(Death),  which  recount  the  deaths  of  heroes  and  heroines.  Cp.  the 
long  list  of  the  latter  in  G.  Dottin's  catalogue  of  Irish  epic  literature, 
Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  Iff.  (1912). 

28  J.  F.  Campbell  identified  the  story  of  Tristan  and  Iseult  with 
that  of  Diarmaid  and  Grainne  in  his  Popular  Tales  of  the  West 
Highlands,  IV,  240  (4  Vols.  London,  1890—1893).  Miss  Schoepperle 
seems  to  have  overlooked  this. 


172  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

corrupt  versions27  that  it  is  difficult  to  compare  the  story  with 
that  of  Tristan  in  detail,  and  the  difficulty  is  still  further  en- 
hanced by  the  fact  that  these  versions  are  so  largely  lyrical.  The 
central  motif,  however,  is  the  same  in  the  two  stories,  so  that 
the  derivation  of  the  latter  from  the  former  or  some  similar  Aithed 
seems  to  be  an  acceptable  conclusion.28  It  is,  doubtless,  due  to 
this  origin  that  the  Tristan  of  the  Old  French  poems  still  differs 
so  greatly  from  the  conventional  hero  of  the  French  romances 
of  chivalry  —  Gawain,  for  example,  whose  main  function  is  to 
exemplify  the  knightly  virtues  of  prowess  and  courtesy  in  their 
highest  manifestations.  Tristan's  nimbleness  of  hand  and  foot,  his 
forest  cunning,  his  skill  in  elementary  feats  of  strength  (leaping, 
putting  the  stone)  are  all  surviving  traits  of  a  more  primitive  type. 
Apart,  however,  from  the  numerous  accretions  to  the  central  theme 
and  the  coloring  of  French  chivalrous  society  which  the  whole 
story  has  received,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  Celtic  tale, 
even  in  respect  to  this  central  theme,  has  undergone  a  transfor- 
mation in  the  hands  of  the  French  romancers,  who  developed  it 
into  what  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest  love-story  in  literature.  The 
transformation,  indeed,  is  so  great  that  some  scholars  have  been 
disposed  to  deny  any  Celtic  influence  at  all  in  the  shaping  of  the. 
love-story.  In  particular,  it  has  been  objected  that  the  conflict 
of  passion  and  law  which  constitutes  the  tragedy  of  the  lovers 
in  the  romance  could  not  have  been  of  Celtic  origin,  since  the  dis- 

47  For  an  account  of  these  versions,  which  range  from  the  tenth 
century  to  the  present  time,  see  the  two  articles  by  J.  H.  Lloyd, 
0.  J.  Bergin  and  G.  Schoepperle  in  the  Revue  Celtique:  "The  Re- 
proach of  Diarmaid,"  XXXIH,  41  ff.  (1912),  and  "The  Deatli  of 
Diarmaid,"  ibid.,  157 ff.  We  have  here,  also,  editions  and  translations 
of  some  of  the  most  important  texts.  Cp.,  also,  on  the  subject  Miss 
Schoepperle's  Tristan  and  Isolt,  II,  395  ff. 

28  It  must  be  confessed  that  in  the  Diarmaid  and  Grainne  texts 
the  passion  displayed  is  mainly  on  the  part  of  the  heroine.  Cp.  for 
instance,  The  Reproach  of  Diarmaid,  just  cited,  where  the  hero 
bewails  to  the  heroine  the  misfortunes  which  she  has  brought  on  him. 
In  still  other  versions  (cp.  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  49  and  Miss 
Schoepperle,  II,  402)  he  resists  her  advances  for  a  long  time.  On 
the  other  hand  (cp.  Rev.  Celt.,  loc.  cit.),  in  some  of  these  versions 
Grainne  is  unfaithful  to  Diarmaid  with  a  stranger  who  visits  their  cave. 


Tristan  173 

solution  of  the  marriage  tie  was  easy  among  the  Celts29  and  the 
idea  of  womanly  modesty  and  virtue  had  little  force  among  the 
Celtic  populations  in  the  period  with  which  we  are  concerned.30 
There  is  a  measure  of  truth  in  the  first  of  these  objections,  for 
the  moral  reprobation  of  adultery  is  not  emphasized  in  these  Celtic 
tales,  which  reflect  a  more  primitive  condition  of  society  than  the 
French  romances,  but  the  parallelism  with  Diarmaid  and  Grainne, 
or  even  with  the  more  celebrated  story  of  the  love  of  Naisi  and 
Deirdre,  wife  of  Conchobar,31  is  too  striking  to  be  accidental. 
All  three  of  these  tales,  with  their  forest  setting  to  a  drama  of 
adultery,  in  which  the  principal  actors  are  a  hero,  his  uncle  (a 
king),  and  the  latter's  wife,  bear  unmistakably,  it  would  seem,  the 
stamp  of  the  same  mint.  A  recognition  of  this  fact,  however,  does 
not  conflict  with  the  view  that,  after  all,  the  tragedy  of  Tristan 
and  Iseult,  which,  through  the  romances,  has  impressed  itself  on 
the  imagination  of  the  modern  world  so  deeply,  owes  its  strength, 
mainly,  to  the  changes  which  the  French  poets  wrought  in  the 
Celtic  tradition.    Leaving  aside  the  addition  of  the  story  of  Iseult 


29  Cp.  Bedier's  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II.  163ff.  Bedier 
appeals  especially  to  the  Welsh  law  on  the  subject  in  the  so-called 
Laws  of  Howel  the  Good  (ninth  and  tenth  centuries).  In  his  reply  to 
Bedier,  Revue  Celtique,  XXX,  270ff.  (1909),  Loth  has  attenuated,  in 
some  measure,  the  force  of  that  scholar's  argument. 

30  Cp.  the  posthumous  article  of  H. Zimmer,  cited  above:  "DerKultur- 
geschichtliche  Hintergrund  in  den  Erzahlungen  der  alten  irischen  Helden- 
sage,"  Sitzungsberichte  der  kbniglichen  preussischen  Akademie  der 
Wissenschaften,"  pp.  174  ff.  (Berlin  1911),  where  he  collects  some  extra- 
ordinary instances  of  shameless  immodesty  on  the  part  of  women  in  the 
Irish  heroic  sagas.  Loth  observes  in  reply,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  260, 
note  (1912),  "Quant  aux  faits  de  divergondage  qu'il  cite  ils  ne  prou- 
vent  pas  plus  contre  les  moeurs  des  Celtes  que  la  conduite  des  per- 
sonnages  de  l'Olympe  contre  les  moeurs  des  anciens  Grecs."  Loth, 
ibid.,  refutes  Zimmer's  idea  that  this  supposed  immodesty  was  a  con- 
comitant of  the  matriarchal  system  which  was  in  vogue  among  the  Picts. 

The  Aithed  of  these  two  characters  is  preserved,  in  one  of 
its  versions,  in  the  Book  of  Leinster  (a  MS.  written  before  1150). 
For  editions  and  translations  cp.  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  411,  note  1. 
There  are  convenient  English  translations  of  this  Irish  saga  in  A.  H.  Leahy, 
Heroic  Romances  of  Ireland,  I,  95,  (2  vols.,  London,  1905  —  6)  and 
Eleanor  Hull,   The  Cuchullin  Saga,  pp.  123ff.  (London,  1898). 


174  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  Brittany  to  the    original  Aithed  and    other    accretions    that 
heighten,  in  a  variety  of  ways,  the  interest  of  the  legend,  one  may 
note  among  these  changes  the  discardal  of  the  bizarre  paganism 
of  the  Old  Irish  tale  with  its  duplicate  motifs  of  the  hero's  love- 
spot  and  the  heroine's  geisZ2  —  both  based  on  forms  of  super- 
stition that  are  too  primitive  to  win  the  interest  or  sympathy  of 
modern  society  —  and  the  substitution  in  the  romances  of  the  in- 
cident of  the  love-drink,  shared  by  the  two  lovers,  which  has  the 
double  advantage  of  a  unified  motif  and  of  the  hallowed  famili- 
arity of  classical  associations.     But,  above  all,  the  power  of  the 
story  in  the  French  romances  is  due  to  the  initial  scene  of  Tristan 
and    Iseult's    love-story    (the    scene    of    the    love-potion),    with 
its  definite  symbolism  that  dominates  the  rest  of  the  narrative  — 
the  symbolism  of  a  passion  against  which  no  human  convention 
can  stand  —  to  the  elaboration  of  the  forest  scenes,  to  the  true 
and  vivid  picture  of  the  passion  that  constantly  draws  the  hero 
back    to    the    heroine,    contrary    to    the    obligations    of    kinship 
and  personal  loyalty,  and,  despite  every  variety  of  obstacle,  not 
permitting  him  to    forget  her  even  in  the  embraces  of  another 
woman.    The  Celtic  texts,  such  as  The  Reproach  of  Diarmaid  and 
Death  of  Diarmaidy  have  a  beauty  of  their  own  that  testifies  to, 
a  more  intimate  contact  with  the  life  of  nature,  but  the  French 
romances  are  manifestly  the  products  of  a  higher  civilization33 
and  a  more  strongly  sustained  narrative  art. 

32  Cp.  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  401  f.  on  this  subject.  The  "love- 
spot"  was  a  mark  on  a  man's  person  that  rendered  him  irresistible  to 
women.  "The  geis  is  a  peculiarly  Irish  taboo  which  any  individual 
seems  to  have  been  at  liberty  to  impose  upon  any  other,  and  which, 
if  disregarded,  entailed  moral  degradation  and  swift  retribution."  D'Arbois 
de  Jubainville  observed,  however,  Revue  Celtique,  XV,  406,  note  1 
(1894),  that  the  Irish  geis  differs  from  the  spell  which  the  love-potion 
exercises  in  the  French  Tristan  romances,  inasmuch  as  one  was  free 
to  disregard  the  former  —  only  the  punishment  inevitably  followed. 

38  It  has  been  remarked  that  the  whole  character  of  this  great 
love-story,  with  its  dreieckiges  Verhdltnis  (husband,  wife  and  lover), 
is  manifestly  French,  and,  consequently,  could  only  have  entered  into 
the  Tristan  tradition  after  the  French  writers  began  to  handle  the 
theme.  But  adultery  has  been  a  favorite  theme  of  romances,  both 
written  and  oral,  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  The  Irish  Aitheda  show 
how  common  it  was  in  Celtic  romances.    Nevertheless,  as  said  above, 


Tristan  175 

Granting,  now,  the  Celtic  origin34  of  this  famous  love-story 
of  Tristan  and  Iseult  of  Cornwall,  it  remains  to  fix  as  far  as  pos- 

the  conflict  of  passion  and  law  which  is  at  the  basis  of  the  tragedy 
of  Tristan  and  Iseult  in  the  French  romances  is  characteristic  of  a 
more  advanced  stage  of  civilisation  than  that  which  produced  the  Irish 
sagas.  There  are  some  admirable  remarks  on  this  subject  by  H.  D'Arbois 
de  Jubainville,  Revue  Celtique,  XV,  407  f.  (1894).  It  was  the  growing 
power  of  women  in  the  twelfth  century,  who  now  inherited  fiefs,  that 
gave  their  quality  to  such  heroines  as  Iseult. 

I  may  remark,  in  passing,  that,  owing  to  the  idea  of  fate,  which 
the  Tristan  legend  seems  to  show,  Egidio  Gorra  has  suggested  that 
the  primitive  story  concerning  this  hero  was  of  classical  origin.  Cp. 
his  article  "Tristano,"  pp.  577  ff.  of  the  Studj  letterari  e  linguistici 
dedicati  a  Pio  Rajna,  net  quarantesimo  anno  del  suo  insegnamento 
(Milan,  1911).  This  is  true,  doubtless,  of  the  love-potion  feature  of 
our  extant  texts,  but  one  cannot  make  such  an  assertion  of  the  story 
as  a  whole.  Gorra's  article  is  purely  subjective  throughout  and  adds 
nothing  to  our  knowledge  of  the  evolution  of  the  legend. 

Bedier,  II,  155 ff.,  has  noted  the  following  details  in  various 
Tristan  poems  as  being  too  primitive  for  a  French  knight  of  the  twelfth 
century,  and  hence,  as  of  Celtic  origin:  1.  In  the  Tristan  episode,  11. 
453 — 662  of  the  Donnei  des  Amanz  (Amorous  dialogue  of  lovers), 
edited  by  G.  Paris,  Romania,  XXV,  497ff.  (1896).  According  to 
Paris  (pp.  531,  534),  the  poem,  which  is  a  mediaeval  "debate", 
and  not  a  romance,  was  written  in  England  towards  the  end  of  the 
twelfth  century.  The  lover  (a  cleric,  it  seems),  urging  his  lady-love 
to  yield  to  his  suit  cites  the  example  of  various  heroines  of  ro- 
mance —  among  others,  Iseult  —  and,  in  connection  therewith,  tells 
a  story  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  Tristan  romances,  viz.  how  Tristan, 
returning  to  Cornwall  from  Brittany,  signaled  his  presence  to  Iseult 
from  a  garden  near  Marc's  palace  by  imitating  various  birds.  From 
childhood,  the  poet  says  (11.  475  ff.),  Tristan  had  been  able  to  imitate 
any  bird  in  the  forest.  The  episode  is  one  of  the  most  vigorous  things 
in  the  literature  of  the  Tristan  legend,  and  Paris  is,  no  doubt,  right 
in  regarding  it  (p.  536)  as  based  on  an  earlier  short  poem  concerning 
Tristan.  One  may  agree,  too,  with  Bedier  (loc.  cit.)  that  the  power 
of  the  hero  to  imitate  birds  exactly  belongs  to  a  different  state  of 
society  from  that  which  prevailed  among  the  knights  and  barons  of 
the  twelfth  century.  But  the  episode,  as  is  acknowledged  even  by 
G.  Paris  (p.  537),  who  is  inclined  to  believe  that  it  is  essentially  of 
Celtic  origin,  shows  unmistakable  dependence  on  Beroul,  and  so  the  trait 
in  question  is,  in  all  probability,  secondary.  Besides,  Miss  Schoepperle, 
II,  288ff.,  has   shown  that   the   power    of  imitating   birds  was  a  not 


176  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sible,  the  history  of  its  growth  before  it  reached  the  French  ro- 
mancers and  the  share  which  the  different  regions,  inhabited  by 


uncommon  accomplishment  of  French  minstrels  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  century.  It  would  be,  then,  quite  natural  for  one  of  the  guild 
to  attribrte  to  the  hero  of  a  poem  he  was  composing  this  trick  under 
the  circumstances  of  the  above-mentioned  episode,  especially  as  we  find 
one  of  them  in  the  Folie  Tristan,  11.  184f.,  ascribing  to  him  other 
juggler's  tricks.  Cp.  Schoepperle,  II,  290ff.  2.  In  Beroul,  11.  1752f. 
Tristan  has  a  bow  that  never  fails  to  hit  the  mark.  For  a  similar 
bow,  however,  in  English  tradition,  much  earlier  than  Beroul  cp.  the 
example  from  Geffrai  Gaimar,  Lestorie  des  Engles,  11,  4409  ff.  (edited 
for  the  Rolls  Series  in  1888  by  T.  D.  Hardy  and  E.  Martin),  cited 
by  E.  Muret  in  his  edition  of  Beroul,  p.  IX,  and  Miss  Schoepperle,  II, 
316  f.  The  traitor,  Eadric,  is  there  said  to  have  slain  Edmund,  King 
of  England,  in  1016  with  such  a  bow.  3.  Mark's  horselike  ears  which 
he  has  to  conceal  under  his  hair,  Beroul,  11.  1306ff.  As  stated  above, 
this  is,  doubtless,  Celtic,  although  similar  to  the  Midas  legend.  4.  Tin- 
tagel,  Folie  Tristan  11.  129ff.  (Douce  MS.),  disappears  twice  a  year. 
Occurring  in  only  one  version,  the  detail  may  well  be  the  fancy  of 
the  individual  poet. 

There  is  nothing  distinctively  Celtic  in  vanishing  castles,  which 
are  common  in  fairy-tales  the  world  over.  I  agree  with  Miss  Schoep- 
perle, II,  325,  note  2,  that  the  Irish  parallels  to  this  and  the  next 
detail,  No.  5,  cited  by  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  Revue  Celtique,  XXII, 
133  (1901)  and  approved  by  Bedier,  U.  156 f.,  are  really  no  parallels. 
In  the  Folie  Tristan  (Douce  MS.),  11.  301  ff.,  Tristan,  playing  the  role 
of  a  fool,  says  that  he  has  a  hall  of  glass  up  in  the  air.  What  I 
have  said  of  No.  4  applies  here,  too.  On  the  subject  of  glass-houses 
cp.  W.  0.  Sypherd,  Studies  in  Chaucer's  House  of  Fame,  pp.  85  f. 
Publications  of  the  Chaucer  Society  (London,  1907). 

Besides  these  five  features,  Bedier  has  conjectured,  also,  a  Celtic 
origin  for  two  others,  though  less  positively:  1.  In  both  Thomas  (cp. 
Bedier,  I,  194ff.)  and  Eilhart,  11.  3504 f.,  and  hence,  one  may  say, 
certainly  in  their  common  (lost)  source,  Tristan  communicates  with 
Iseult  by  writing  on  bits  of  wood  which  he  drops  into  a  stream  that 
flows  through  or  past  Iseult' s  chamber.  Kuno  Meyer,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph. 
XXVI,  716f.  (1902)  and  XXVIH,  353f.  (1904),  first  cited  indu- 
bitable parallels  to  this  from  Irish  sagas,  with  examples  of  streams 
flowing  through  houses  in  Wales  and  Southern  Scotland  even  at  the 
present  day.  See,  also,  Miss  Schoepperle,  pp.  303 ff.,  for  examples 
drawn  from  the  saga  of  Dairmaid  and  Grainne,  which,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  so  closely  akin  to  that  of  Tristan  and  Iseult.  It  seems  certain 
that  this  detail  descended  to  the  Tristan  poems  from  the  original  Celtic 


Tristan  177 

the  Celts,  had  in  this  process.  The  task  is  one  which  has  long 
enlisted  the  energies  of  the  ablest  students  of  the  matiere  de 
Bretagne. 

As  is  customary  in  cases  where  the  records   are  so  scanty, 
scholars  have  turned  to  the  nomenclature35  of   the  story   in  the 

saga,  although  streams  running  through  houses,  despite  K.  Meyer,  Zs, 
f.  rom.  Ph.  XXVIII,  353,  note  2,  are  not  confined  to  Celtic  regions. 
Cp.  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  302,  notes  1  and  2.  To  the  examples  which 
she  discusses  I  may  add  one  from  the  version  of  the  Alexander  saga 
called  Historia  de  Preliis,  III,  22  (tenth  century).  It  is  cited  by 
A.  Hilka,  Vollmbller's  Jahrbuch,  Teil  II,  p.  86,  note  89.  Here  a  stream 
flows  under  Candace's  palace.  2.  The  incident  of  the  blades  which 
Marc  places  by  Iseult's  bed  and  by  which  Tristan  is  wounded.  Here 
thirty  or  forty  guests  are  represented  as  sleeping  in  the  chamber  of 
their  host.  This  trait  belongs,  as  Bedier  remarks,  to  a  primitive  state 
of  society.  This  is  true,  but  that  society  need  not  have  been  Celtic, 
for  we  find  the  same  thing  in  the  actual  customs,  as  well  as  folk- 
tales, of  other  regions  too.  —  Cp.  Schoepperle,  I,  215  ff.  The  trick, 
by  which,  Tristan,  with  the  aid  of  Arthur's  knights,  evades  detection 
(they  all  wound  themselves,  so  that  no  one  can  say  who  is  really  the 
guilty  person)  is  merely  a  variant  of  the  tale  of  the  Masterthief,  which, 
from  Herodotus,  Book  II,  Ch.  121,  down,  is  found  in  innumerable  variants. 
For  the  literature  of  the  subject  see  Schoepperle,  I,  214,  note  3.  On 
this  particular  episode,  cp.  G.  Huet,  "Sur  un  episode  du  Tristan  d'Eilhart 
d'Oberg,"  Romania,  XXXVI,  50 ff.  (1907). 

86)  For  variants  of  Tristan,  Iseult,  Marc  and  the  other  names  in 
the  Tristan  romances,  cp.  W.  Hertz,  Tristan  und  Isolde,  pp.  479  ff. 
Hertz,  however,  is  mistaken  (pp.  483 f.)  in  accepting  the  supposed  dis- 
covery of  the  name  "Tristan"'  in  a  document  of  the  year,  807  (from 
Langenargen  on  Lake  Constance).  The  name  there  is  really  "Cristan". 
Cp.  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXXV,  596 f.  Hertz,  ibid.,  discusses  there 
(pp.  482  f.)  other  Tristans  in  mediaeval  romances  —  likewise,  other 
Iseults  (pp.  487f.). 

In  his  "Tristan  on  the  Continent  before  1066",  MLN,  XXIV, 
37f.  (1909)  F.  M.  Warren  points  out  in  early  documents  relating  to 
South  Italy  instances  of  the  occurrence  of  names  (of  Normans)  which 
he  identifies  with  Tristan,  viz.  Trostayne  in  Ystoire  de  li  Normant 
(early  fourteenth  century),  translated  from  the  lost  chronicle  (written 
in  Latin  about  1075)  of  Amatus  of  Monte  Cassino;  Torstainus,  Tri- 
stainus  (also,  names  of  Normans  in  South  Italy)  in  the  part  of  the 
Latin  chronicle  of  Monte  Cassino  by  Leo  de  Marsico  (died  1115), 
which  ends  towards  the  year  1075,  Trostenus  (Tristaynus),  Tro~ 
staynus,  in  the  continuation  (carried  down  to  1139)  of  the  same  chro- 


178  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

search  for  light  regarding  the  question  just  mentioned.  In  his 
well-known  studies  of  Arthurian  names,36  the  late  Professor 
Zimmer  endeavored  to  establish  the  Pictish  origin  of  the  hero's 
name,  and  that  scholar's  identification37  was  all  but  universally 
accepted,  even  by  those  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  bitterest 
controversies  with  him.38  In  the  Irish  chronicles  of  the  Picts 
we  have  in  the  eighth  century  a  Talorcan  filius  Drostan  and  a 
Drest  filius  Talorcan.39  Now,  Celtic  scholars  are  agreed  that 
Drostan  is  the  same  as  Drest  (Drust),  with  a  common  Celtic  suffix 
added,  and  that  Tristan  is  derived  from  Drostan.*0  It  has  been 
shown,  however,  that  Drust  {Drest  and  its  derivatives)  is  not  con- 


nicle  by  Peter  the  Deacon.  We  may  have  here,  however,  MS.  corrup- 
tions of  the  common  Norman  name  Turstin  (from  Old  Norse  Thorsstein), 
which  is  found  in  Domesday  Book  and  (as  Tursten)  in  Rotuli  Scac- 
carii  Normanniae,  p.  LVII  (2  vols.,  London,  1840).  In  Ordericus 
Vitalis's  Historiae  Ecclesiasticae  Libri  Tredecim  we  find  twelve 
different  men  of  this  name  (Turstinus).  Cp.  the  edition  by  A.  Le 
Prevost,  V,  477  (5  vols.,  Paris,  1838—1855.  Societe  de  l'Histoire 
de  France).  It  occurs  many  times  as  Tosteins  (Tostains)  in  Wace's 
Roman  de  Rou,  II,  166,  et  passim  (edited  by  H.  Andresen,  2  vols. 
Heilbronn,  1877—1879).  In  the  form  of  Toustain  the  name  is  still 
met  with  in  Normandy.  The  variant  Tristaynus  would  then  be  due 
to  the  influence  of  the  Tristan  of  our  romances.  Warren  thinks  that 
the  forms  which  he  has  cited  represent  Celtic  Drostan  and  that  they 
reached  Normandy  through  Brittany.  As  he  remarks,  however,  this 
would  not  necessarily  imply   that   the  legend   accompanied   the  name. 

36  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XIII1,  Iff.  (1891). 

37  Ibid.  pp.  58ff. 

38  So  by  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXV,  15  (1896),  who  goes  so  far 
as  to  say  that  this  is  Zimmer's  sole  serious  contribution  to  the  question 
of  the  origin  of  the  Arthurian  romances. 

99  Cp.  Zimmer,  op.  cit,  p.  71. 

40  That  is  to  say,  by  weakening  of  the  radical  vowel  under  con- 
ditions of  light  stress.  The  examples  of  Tristan  (Trystan)  from  Celtic 
documents,  cited  by  Zimmer,  p.  72  of  the  above-mentioned  article,  show 
that  there  is  no  need  of  assuming  the  influence  of  French  triste,  as 
is  sometimes  done,  to  explain  the  change  of  form. 

Zimmer  still  further  maintained  that  the  Trystan  mob  Tallwch 
of  a  Welsh  triad,  which  we  shall  soon  discuss,  was  merely  a  Welsh 


Tristan  179 

fined  to  the  Picts,  as  Zimmer  maintained,  but  belongs  to  the 
general  nomenclature  of  the  Brythonic  Celts,  although  commonest 
among  the  Picts.41  As  far,  then,  as  the  name  alone  is  concerned, 
we  could  not  infer  anything  positively  as  to  the  ultimate  origin 
of  the  story.  It  might  have  belonged  to  any  branch  of  the  Bry- 
thonic Celts.  Nevertheless,  there  are  sufficient  reasons,  I  believe, 
for  regarding  Tristan  as,  in  the  first  instance,  a  Pict.  First  of  all, 
the  name,  although  not  confined  to  the  Picts,  is  much  commoner 
among  them  than  among  the  other  Celts.  Furthermore,  all  the 
chief  versions  of  the  story  represent  the  hero's  father  as  ruling 
Loonois  (Loenois)  and  the  region  in  which  he  and  Iseult  lead 
their  forest-life  as  Morois.  Now,  despite  mistaken  identifications 
in  the  romances,  themselves,  it  seems  most  probable  that  Loonois 


rendering  of  a  Pictish  Drostan  mac  Talorg.  J.  Loth,  however,  the 
eminent  Celtic  authority,  who  argues,  as  we  shall  see,  that  the  story 
of  Tristan  and  Iseult  is  a  Cornish  legend,  which  reached  the  French 
poets  through  the  Welsh,  has  proved,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  409  (1911), 
that  there  is  no  phonetic  correspondence  between  Tallwch  and  Talorg: 
the  names  are  not  identical.  On  the  other  hand,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
Tallwch  is  so  close  in  sound  to  Talorg  that  we  may  reasonably  accept 
it  as  an  inexact  rendering  of  the  latter.  It  is  significant  that  the  name, 
Tallwch,  is  not  found  elsewhere  in  Welsh  records. 

41  Loth  further  contends  that  Dristan,  the  form  nearest  to  the 
French  name,  which  is  actually  found  in  Welsh  documents  of  about 
1100,  cannot  even  be  Cornish,  that  it  is  only  possible  in  Welsh  and, 
still  further,  that,  since  in  pronunciation  this  i  had  the  sound  of  an 
umlauted  o,  the  French  must  have  derived  the  name  from  written  and 
not  oral  sources.  (On  these  subjects  cp.  loc.  cit.  and  the  reprint  of 
the  same  in  his  Contributions  a  I 'etude  des  romans  de  la  table 
ronde  pp.  16ff.  In  Romania,  XIX,  455 ff.  he  had  already  contended 
that  Welsh  (Cornish)  Drystan  was  independent  of  the  Gaelic  and  the 
French  Iseult  came  from  Welsh  Essylt).  I  confess,  however,  that 
this  distinction  seems  to  me  somewhat  wire-drawn.  It  would  be  easy 
for  anyone  who  was  not  familiar  with  the  name  to  catch  imperfectly 
the  pronunciation,  Drostan  or  Trostan,  and  write  it  down,  Tristan. 
Indeed,  there  would  be  nothing  very  surprising  if  a  person,  hearing 
even  the  Cornish  or  Breton  pronunciation  of  the  name,  Drostan,  were 
to  record  it  inaccurately  as  Tristan. 

On  the  names,  Tristan  and  Iseult,  see,  still  further,  E.  Windisch, 
Das  Keltische  Brittanien  bis  zu  Kaiser  Arthur,  pp.  213ff.  (Leip- 
zig, 1912). 


180  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

is  the  Scottish  Lothian  and  Morois  (Morrois)  the  Scottish  Murray 
—  so  two  districts  that  were  undeniably  inhabited  by  the  Picts.42 
The  fame  of  Tristan  began,  then,  as  we  may  assume,  with  the 
Picts,  probably  merely  as  a  character  in  heroic  saga,  with  no  love- 
story  attached;  but  did  it  pass  through  Wales43  and,  perhaps, 
Cornwall  on  its  way  to  the  French,  and,  if  so,  what  accretions 
did  it  receive  in  those  regions?  The  principal  evidence  bearing 
on  the  Welsh  side  of  the  question  is  that  which  is  offered  by  the 
Triads.  In  one  of  these  (Loth's  Mabinogion,  II,  231)  Tristan  is 
called  one  of  the  three  chief  diadem- wearers  of  Britain;  in  another 
{ibid,  p.  238)  he  is  one  of  the  three  machine-masters  of  Britain; 
in  still  another,  {ibid,  p.  260),  he  is  one  of  the  three  lovers  of 
Britain.  Lastly,  in  a  fourth  triad  {ibid,  pp.  247f.),  he  is  one  of 
the  three  great  swine-herds  of  Britain,  but  he  is,  at  the  same 
time,  the  lover  of  Marc's  wife,  apparently.  He  keeps  Marc's  swine, 
whilst  the  regular  swine-herd  goes  on  a  message  to  Essyllt,  as  she 
is  here  called;   Arthur,  Marc,  Kay  and  Bedivere  could  not  get  a 


42  This  interpretation  was  first  proposed  by  F.  Lot,  Romania, 
XXV,  16ff.  (1896).  J.  Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIIL  280ff.  (1912), 
identifies  Morois  with  a  manor  in  Cornwall  named  Moresc  (now, 
St.  Clement's),  in  the  neighborhood  of  Truro;  but,  as  A.  Smirnov  has 
pointed  out  in  his  excellent  review  of  Loth's  Contributions  a,  I 'etude 
des  romans  de  la  table  ronde,  Romania,  XLI1I,  121  (1914),  Moresc, 
as  a  place-name,  occurs  frequently  in  other  Celtic  regions.  Besides, 
as  he  says,  the  situation  of  the  Cornish  Moresc  does  not  fit  well  with 
the  requirements  of  the  Tristan  narrative.  For  my  own  part,  I  would 
add  that  Loonois  and  Morois  evidently  belong  together  and  that  they 
are  both  explained  satisfactorily  on  Lot's  theory,  whereas  Loth,  op. 
cit.,  pp.  286 f.,  is  unable  to  explain  the  former  at  all,  under  his  new 
theory.  In  the  Annates  de  Bretagne,  XI,  479  (1895 — 6)  he  had 
accepted  the  identification  of  Loonois  with  Loonia  (Lothian). 

43  The  question  would  be  hardly  arguable,  if  the  Welsh  Tristan 
fragments  from  the  Black  Book  of  Carmarthen  which  J.  Loth  has  edited 
and  translated,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  403  ff.  (1912),  really  date 
from  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  as  he  thinks.  These  frag- 
ments are  excessively  obscure,  but  the  second  one  would  appear  to 
relate  to  Kaherdin,  brother  of  Iseult  of  Brittany.  Now  the  story  of 
Iseult  of  Brittany  seems  plainly  a  French  addition  to  the  Tristan  ro- 
mance, as  set  forth  above,  but  the  date  assigned  by  Loth  to  these 
fragments  would  be  too  early  for  French  influence. 


Tristan  181 

single  hog  from  him,  whether  by  ruse,  violence,  or  theft.  Further- 
more, in  the  Dream  of  Rhonabwy,  a  prose  tale  of  the  Mabinogion 
collection,  he  appears  (Drystan  mab  Tallwch)  among  Arthur's 
counsellors.  This  tale  is  certainly  not  earlier  than  the  middle 
of  the  twelfth  century  and  it  may  have  been  influenced  by  the 
French  poems.  The  triads,  enumerated  above,  are  found  only  in 
a  MS.  of  the  fourteenth  century,  when  the  French  romances  had 
spread  the  fame  of  Tristan  throughout  Europe,  and  if  we  were 
dependent  entirely  on  them,  it  would  be  impossible  to  say  whether, 
in  representing  the  hero  as  a  lover  of  Marc's  wife,  they  were 
really  reflecting  native  tradition.  After  he  became  known  through 
the  French  romances,  it  would  be  only  natural  that  native  writers 
should  weave  still  other  stories  about  him  and  his  famous  mistress. 
This  seems  certainly  the  origin  of  the  pretty  tale44  in  which 
Arthur  is  called  on  to  judge  between  Marc  and  Tristan  as  to  the 


44  Arthur  decided  that  one  should  possess  her,  whilst  the  leaves 
were  on  the  wood,  the  other,  whilst  they  were  off,  the  husband  to 
have  the  choice.  Mark  chose  the  second  alternative,  because  the  nights 
are  longer  in  that  season,  but  Iseult  joyfully  pointed  out  that  the 
holly,  the  ivy  and  the  yew  were  never  without  leaves  —  hence  Mark 
lost  her  forever. 

This  tale,  the  earliest  MS.  of  which  dates  from  about  1550,  was 
first  edited  by  J,  Gwenogvryn  Evans  in  the  Report  on  Manuscripts 
in  the  Welsh  language  (Historical  Manuscripts  Commission),  Vol.  I, 
Part  II,  (London,  1899)  and  Vol.  II,  Part  I  (1902).  It  has  since 
been  edited  (as  Ystoria  Tristan),  with  translation,  by  J.  Loth,  Revue 
Celtique,  XXXV,  365ff.  (1913),  and  by  T.  P.  Cross,  under  the  title 
of  "A  Welsh  Tristan  Episode,"  [University  of  North  CarohnaJ  Studies 
in  Philology,  XVII,  93ff.  (1920).  Cp.,  too,  W.  Golther,  Tristan  und 
Isolde,  pp.  238  f.  for  an  outline  of  the  tale,  which  he  quotes  from 
I.  B.  John's  paper  on  it  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Guild  of  Graduates, 
pp.  14ff.  (Cardiff,  1904).  Loth  gives,  also,  an  account  of  the  story 
in  the  Comptes  Rendus  de  V  Academie  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles- 
Lettres,  Bulletin  de  Mars-Avril,  1913,  pp.  92  ff. 

Bedier  does  not  include  this  tale  in  his  discussion  (in  his  Intro- 
duction) of  the  different  versions  of  the  Tristan  legend.  Evans  claimed 
that  it  was  the  story  of  Tristan  in  its  earliest  form  and  Windisch, 
Das  Keltische  Brittanien  bis  zu  Kaiser  Arthur,  p.  285  (Leipzig, 
1912),  unwarily  accepted  this  claim,  but  Loth  has  refuted  it  in  his 
edition,  pp.  377ff. 


182  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

possession  of  Iseult.  It  includes  a  metrical  dialogue45  of  mutual 
compliment  between  Tristan  and  Gawain  (Gwalchmai),  the  latter's 
object  being  to  induce  his  friend  to  meet  Arthur. 

The  following  considerations,  however,  seem  to  show  that  the 
conception  of  Tristan  as  the  lover  of  Iseult  originated  either  in 
Wales  or,  more  probably,  in  Cornwall.  The  mistress  of  Tristan 
is  in  all  versions  represented  as  the  wife  of  Marc  (Mark),  King 
of  Cornwall.  Now  Mark  is  common  as  a  Germanic  name,  but 
it  is  also  given  as  the  name  of  a  king  of  Cornwall  in  the  sixth 
century  in  the  life  of  the  saint,  Paulus  Aurelianus.  It  is  said  of 
this  saint  in  his  Latin  biography,  which  was  written  by  Wrmonoc, 
a  monk  of  Landevennec  (in  Brittany)  in  884,  that  his  fame 
reached  the  ears  of  King  Marc  —  "otherwise  Quonomorius".46 
Quonomorius,  it  may  be  observed,  is  a  Celtic  name  occurring  else- 
where. On  the  other  hand,  Marc  means  horse  in  the  Celtic  langua- 
ges. In  the  Tristan  poem  by  Beroul,  King  Marc  is  represented 
as  having  the  ears  of  a  horse,  which  he  tries  to  conceal,  and  we 
have  here,  doubtless,  a  trait  of  Cornish  tradition47  which  came 
to  Beroul  through  the  primitive  Tristan.  Moreover,  Marc's  sene- 
schal, Dinas  of  Lidan,  bears  a  name  of  Welsh48  or  Cornish49 
origin,  which,  to  be  sure,  as  it  appears  in  the  French  poems,  rests 
on  a  misunderstanding,  since  Dinas  Lidan  in  these  languages  means 
"large  fortress."  In  the  poem  the  proper  name  (perhaps,  Dinan) 
or  title,  which  must  have  stood  in  the  original  Celtic  source,  has 

46  These  verses,  which  belong  to  the  species  of  poetry  called 
Englynion  (epigrams)  in  Welsh,  were  known  to  scholars  long  before 
the  rest  of  the  tale  in  which  they  occur.  Cp.  Grolther,  op.  tit.,  p.  239. 
Cross,  p.  93,  cites  another  Welsh  dialogue  between  Tristan  and 
Gwalchmai,  similar  to  this. 

46  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXV,  19f.  (1896),  shows  that  Wrmonoc's 
sources  were  certainly  insular,  and  he  is  probably  right  in  regarding 
Marc  (Quonomorius)  as  an  actual  person.  For  other  occurrences  of 
Marc  as  a  Celtic  name,  cp.  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  271,  note  3. 

47  In  a  note,  however,  to  A.  le  Braz's  La  Legende  de  la  Mort, 
II,  97  (new  ed.  Paris,  1902),  G.  Dottin  derives  it  from  the  story  of 
Midas  and  cites  it  as  an  instance  of  the  adaptation  of  a  classical 
legend  by  the  Celts. 

48  Cp.  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  337. 

40  Cp.  J.  Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  288 f. 


Tristan  183 

dropped  out.50  This  character,  it  should  be  remembered,  has  an 
intimate  connection  with  the  legend  and  his  name  is,  therefore, 
significant  of  the  origin  of  the  romance,  or,  at  least,  of  the  epi- 
sodes in  which  he  plays  a  part. 

As  regards  the  name  of  the  heroine,  Iseult,  this  has  been 
usually  regarded  as  of  Germanic  origin,  and,  accordingly,  seemed 
to  conflict  with  the  theory  of  the  Welsh  or  Cornish,  or,  indeed, 
Celtic  origin  of  the  love-story.  Iswalda,  Ishild  (parallel  to  Brune- 
hild,  Richild)  have  been  suggested  as  Germanic  equivalents.51 
Zimmer  disputed  the  Celtic  character  of  the  name,  Essylt,  which 
is  given  to  Marc's  wife  in  the  Welsh  triads,  and  derived  it  from 
the  Anglo-Saxon  Ethylda.52  This  accorded  with  his  view  that  the 
triads  about  Tristan  and  Essylt  do  not  reflect  a  native  tradition.58 
The  Cornish  place-name,  Ryt-Eselt  ("Eselt's  ford"),  which 
is  found  in  an  Anglo-Saxon  charter  of  the  year  967, 54  proves, 
however,  that  this  name  could  be  Cornish  as  well  as  Welsh.  The 
matter  is  too  technical  for  a  layman  to  pass  judgment  on,  but, 
on  the  whole,  the  argument  in  favor  of  the  Celtic  origin  of  the 
name  appears  to  carry  with  it  the  weight  of  probability,  and  it 
seems,  furthermore,  mere  pedantry  to  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that 
the  French  Iselt  (Iseut)  is  not  quite  exact  in  its  phonetic  corre- 
spondence to  Welsh  Essylt  or  Cornish  Eselt.55   Foreign  names  are 

60  Loth,  loc  tit.  p.  290,  points  out  that  "Dinas"  cannot  be 
Armorican.  "Pendennis"  (whence  the  name  of  Thackeray's  hero),  name 
of  a  place  in  Cornwall,  was  originally  "Pen-dinas"  —  "chief  fortress". 
On  Dinas  and  its  diminutive,  dinan,  cp.,  still  further,  E.  Phillimore, 
Y  Cymmrodor,  XI,  38f.,  42ff.  (1892).  The  last  is  frequent  as  a 
suffix  in  place-names,  though  disguised  in  spelling  as  —  dinam,  — 
dinham,  e.  g.  Cardinham  in  Cornwall,  which  Phillimore  wrongly 
identifies  with  the  Arthurian  Caradigan.   Cp.  Lot,  Romania,  XXX,  19 i. 

61  Cp.  Muret,  Romania,  XVII,  606,  and  G.  Paris,  ibid.  XVIII,  423. 

62  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XIII  \  73  ff.  (1891).  F.  Lot,  Romania, 
XXV,  18f.  (1896)  was  inclined  to  accept  Zimmer's  view. 

68  So,  too,  D'Arbois  de  Jubainville,  Revue  Celtique,  XV,  408  (1894), 
and  Golther,  Tristan  und  Isolde,  pp.  237ff.  (1907). 

54  Cp.  J.  Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  414ff.  (1911).  He  argues 
that  Iseult  (Iselt)  is  Celtic  in  origin. 

66  Loth,  ibid.,  XXXII,  420,  declares  quite  positively  that  Armorican 
participation  in  transmitting  the  name  of  Iseult  to  the  French  is,  on 
phonetic  grounds,  out  of  the  question. 


184  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

seldom  caught  correctly  and  the  difference,  after  all,  is  very  slight. 
This  difficulty  seems,  then,  to  offer  no  serious  obstacle  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  Welsh  or  Cornish  origin  of  the  love-saga. 

As  between  Wales  and  Cornwall,  the  evidence  would  seem 
to  point  rather  to  the  latter  as  the  region  in  which  the  great  love- 
story  of  Tristan  and  Iseult  first  took  shape.  Indeed,  but  for  the 
role  of  an  intermediary  between  Pictland  and  Cornwall  —  regions 
far  apart  —  which  we  are  compelled  to  assume,  there  would  be 
no  reason  to  attribute  to  Wales  any  part  at  all  in  the  development 
of  the  legend.  The  wronged  husband,  as  we  have  seen,  bore  a 
Cornish  name,  and  was  very  likely  an  actual  Cornish  king.  As 
Loth  has  pointed  out,56  his  Lancien  was  identical  with  the  Lantien 
(Lantyan)  of  our  own  day,  a  village  on  the  river  Fowey,  and  the 
parish  in  which  this  village  is  situated  is  still  called.  Saint 
Sampson's  —  that  is  to  say,  still  bears  the  same  name  as  the  church 
where,  according  to  Beroul  (1.  2977),  Marc  and  Iseult  performed 
their  devotions.57  In  the  neighborhood  there  is  a  place  of  the 
name  of  Kilmarth,  a  corruption  for  Kilmarch  ("Marc's  retreat"). 
Taking  into  consideration  the  evidence  of  these  place-names,  to 
say  nothing  of  some  others,  suggested  by  Loth,  which  are  more 
open  to  question,58  and  the  fact  that  the  Tristan  poems  distinctly 

56  Cp.  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  2701  (1912).  It  appears  in 
Domesday  Book  as  Lantien  (Lanthien).  This  name  for  Marc's 
capital  is  found  only  in  Beroul,  11.  1155  et  passim,  and  in  Gerbert's 
continuation  to  Chretien's  Perceval,  in  the  episode  which  Bedier  and 
Miss  Weston  have  published,  Romania  XXXV,  497fl  (1906),  under 
the  title  of  Tristan  menestrel.  The  latter  derived  it  from  Beroul, 
no  doubt.  It  is  safe  to  assume  that  Beroul,  in  turn,  derived  it  from 
the  (lost)  primitive  Tristan  poem. 

In  the  Comptes  Rendus  of  the  Academie  des  Inscriptions  et 
Belles-Lettres,  Bulletin  de  Decembre,  1916,  pp.  592 f.,  Loth  points 
out  that  a  gate  entering   Lantyan  Wood   is   still   called  Mark's  Gate. 

67  According  to  the  Folie  Tristan,  prose  Tristan  and  Chretien's 
Erec,  Tristan  and  the  Morholt  fight  on  an  island  of  St.  Sampson,  off 
the  coast  of  Cornwall.  In  the  Bulletin  cited  in  the  previous  note, 
pp.  589ff.,  Loth  cites  a  charter  of  May  20,  1301,  to  prove  that  an 
island  once  existed  at  the  mouth  of  the  Fawe.  This  isle  he  identifies 
with  the  Isle  of  St.  Sampson. 

68  Namely,  of  Tristan's  Leap  with  Bodrigdn's  Leap  (south  of 
Lantien),    Mai  Pas   with  Malpas    (near  Truro,    on   the  Truro  river), 


Tristan  185 

locate  the  story  in  Cornwall,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Cornwall 
had  a  main  share  in  the  formation  of  the  legend.  It  would  appear 
that  the  fame  of  a  character,  originally  Pictish,  had  spread  through 
Wales  and  Cornwall,  and  that  in  the  latter,  owing  to  circumstances 
over  which  time  has  drawn  an  impenetrable  veil,  that  character 
became  the  hero  of  this  crowning  love-story  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Apart  from  the  Pictish,  Welsh  and  Cornish  elements  already 
noted,  an  analysis  of  the  Tristan  tradition59  reveals  still  further 
Breton  and  French  names,  which  point  to  the  conclusion  that  both 
of  these  people  likewise  had  a  hand  in  the  final  shaping  of  the 
story,  before  it  reached  the  author  of  the  lost  romance  which  was 
the  common  source  of  the  extant  Tristan  poems.    For  instance, 


Blanche  Lande  with  Blaunchelound  (not  far  from  Malpas  and  recorded 
as  early  as  1306),  now  called  Nansavallan.  Cp.  Revue  Celtique, 
XXX11I,  274ff.  (1912)  and  the  above-cited  Bulletin,  590.  The  first 
of  these  identifications,  however,  is  hardly  more  than  a  guess.  As  for 
the  last  two,  A.  Smirnov,  Romania,  XLIII,  121  ff.,  has  raised  objections 
which  appear  to  me  worthy  of  serious  attention:  The  two  names  are 
common  in  the  Middle  Ages;  Arthur,  coming  to  Lantien  from  Wales, 
would  not  pass  by  Blanche  Lande;  and,  besides,  the  names  occur  in 
episodes  that  do  not  appear  to  belong  to  the  story  of  Tristan  in  its 
original  form. 

Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII,  287  f.  (1912)  also  proposes  to 
emend  Parmenie  (name  of  the  kingdom  of  Tristan's  father  in  Gottfried) 
to  Hermenie  and  identify  it  with  the  manor  named  in  Domesday  Book 
Hoimenen  (now  Harmony).  But  it  is  not  likely  that  a  manor  should 
be  called  a  kingdom.  The  alternative  identification  which  he  suggests, 
viz.  with  Hen-moniu,  is  not  open  to  the  same  objection,  but  this,  too, 
is  pure  speculation. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  finally,  that  the  Cornish  names,  Malpas; 
Blanche  Lande,  Mark's  Gate,  may  be  due  to  attempts  at  localization 
of  the  Tristan  story,  suggested  by  the  romances.  As  early  as  the 
twelfth  century  such  localizations  of  the  story  as  we  have  seen,  were 
made  about  Dublin,  and  one  of  them,  Chapelizod  (name  of  a  village 
near  Dublin),  has  persisted  to  this  day.  Cp.  letters  on  the  subject 
in  The  Athenaeum  Feb.  21  (p.  26),  May  10,  17,  1913.  The  writers 
naively  cite  these  localizations  as  proofs  of  the  actual  existence  of  the 
characters  concerned,  but  they  are,  of  course,  like  the  localizations  of 
the  Romeo  and  Juliet  story  at  Verona,  which  are  all  recent  and  based 
on  Shakespeare's  play. 

69  Cp.  Bedier,  II,  122f. 


186  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  names  of  Rivalin,  Tristan's  father,  and  Hoel,  his  father-in- 
law,  are  ummistakably  Breton,  whereas  Blanchefleur,  the  name 
of  his  mother,  and  Petitcru,  that  of  his  marvellous  dog,  are  evi- 
dently French.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  the  Bretons  acted  as  inter- 
mediaries in  the  transmission  of  the  story  from  Great  Britain 
to  the  French.  The  fact  that  one  of  the  hero's  parents  bears  a 
French  name,  the  other  a  Breton  name,  is  especially  significant.60 
The  inventor  of  this  part  of  the  legend  must  have  been  familiar 
with  both  languages  and  he  was,  doubtless,  a  Breton  from  the 
bi-lingual  zone.  According  to  Bedier,  it  was  the  Breton  jongleurs 
who  were  drawn  to  Great  Britain  by  the  Norman  occupation  that 
brought  the  story  of  the  lovers  home  with  him  across  the  channel, 
but  since  the  researches  of  Loth  have  shown  that  there  was  cer- 
tainly, to  say  the  least  of  it,  an  early  localization  of  this  story  in 
Cornwall,  it  would  seem  likely  that  it  was  transmitted  directly 
from  Cornwall  to  Brittany  by  the  ordinary  processes  of  oral  tra- 
dition.61 

Accepting,  in  general,  the  theory  that  the  essential  feature 


60  I  am  assuming  here  that  Riwelin  (Riwelen)  —  which  is  Breton 
(cp.  Zimmer,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XIII1,  58  ff.)  —  was  the  name 
of  Tristan's  father  in  the  legend  in  the  form  in  which  it  first  became 
known  to  the  French.  This  is  the  name  of  the  hero's  father  in  Eilhart 
and  Gottfried.  The  early  part  of  Thomas's  Tristan  is  lost,  but, 
doubtless,  Gottfried  derived  the  name  from  Thomas.  In  the  prose 
romance,  the  character  is  called  Meliadus.  This,  however,  is  certainly 
a  late  substitution.  He  is  surnamed,  still  further,  Kanelangres  by 
Thomas.  Brugger,  in  his  article,  uZum  Tristan-Roman",  Archiv  fur 
das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen,  CXXIX,  134ff.  (1912)  tries  to 
prove  that  Kanelangres  is  a  mere  corruption  of  Talergen  (diminutive 
of  Talorch,  the  name  of  the  eighth  century  Pictish  king,  whose  son 
was  named  Drust-Tristan),  but  his  argument  is  not  convincing.  The 
name  still  awaits  a  satisfactory  explanation.     Cp.  Bedier,  I,  2,  note  2. 

61  This  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  likely  hypothesis,  and  Golther 
(p.  70)  has  accepted  it  as  such.  But  he  believes  that  the  Tristan 
legend  was  among  both  Welsh  and  Bretons,  mere  heroic  saga,  not  a 
love-story  and  that  the  love  motif  was  first  introduced  by  the  French. 
Indeed,  he  sees  in  the  Tristan  story  the  influence  of  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth and  the  narrative  of  the  infidelity  of  Arthur's  wife  with  his 
nephew,  Mordred.  But,  as  I  have  observed  above,  the  balance  of 
probabilities  seems  against  this  supposition. 


Tristan  187 

of  the  Tristan  legend  —  the  love-motif  —  was  Celtic,  and  that 
it  reached  the  French  poets  in  the  manner  that  has  been  describ- 
ed, I  will  conclude  with  an  examination  of  those  elements  in 
the  story  which  we  may  regard  as  later  accretions. 

It  has  always  been  recognized  that  the  various  stratagems 
by  which  the  lovers  elude  the  vigilance  of  King  Marc  were  not 
characteristically  Celtic  and  were  probably  brought  into  the  story 
at  a  comparatively  late  stage.  Thus  the  incident  of  the  blades  by 
which  Tristan  is  wounded,  with  the  subsequent  trick  to  deceive 
the  husband,  has  been  shown  to  be  a  modification  of  a  story  as 
old  as  Herodatus  —  the  tale  of  the  thief  who  robs  a  king's  treasury.62 
Iseult's  oath  that  no  one  has  touched  her  save  Marc  and  the  beggar 
(really  the  disguised  Tristan)  is  likewise  a  wide-spread  folk-lore 
motif.  For  instance  there  is  a  close  parallel  to  the  incident  in  the 
Icelandic  Grettissaga  (end  of  thirteenth  century).63  Take  also 
the  episode  in  which  Marc,  concealed  in  a  tree,  listens  to  the  lovers, 
who,  becoming  aware  of  his  presence,  change  their  conversation 
so  as  to  deceive  him.  This  was  manifestly  suggested  by  the  pear- 
tree  story,  so  well  known  to  f olklorists  and  immortalized  by  Chaucer 
in  the  Merchant's  Tale.  The  motifs,  to  be  sure,  are  not  the  same, 
for  in  the  pear-tree  tale  the  lovers  persuade  the  husband  that  the 
disgraceful  scene  which  he  has  witnessed  was  the  result  of  optical 
illusion.  Nevertheless,  the  situation  is  so  similar  —  the  husband 
hidden  in  the  tree  and  the  lovers  beneath  —  that  we  may  safely 
accept  the  Tristan  episode  as  a  mild  adaptation  of  that  story. 

More  important  than  these  matters  is  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  the  opening  and  concluding  divisions  of  the  romance  — 
Tristan's  birth  and  childhood,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  story  of 
Iseult  of  Brittany,  on  the  other.  There  is  no  indication  of  these 
features  of  the  romance  in  the  scanty  Welsh  tradition,  and  there 
can  be  hardly  a  doubt  that  both  episodes  are  later  developments 
in  the  story  —  doubtless,  inventions  of  the  author  of  the  lost 
primitive  French  Tristan.     In  the  chansons  de  geste,  nearly  all 


6  2 


Cp.  G.  Huet,    "Sur  un  episode   du  Tristan   d'Eilhart  d'Oberg" 
Romania,  XXXVI,  50ff.  (1907)  and  G.  Schoepperle,  I,  213ff.  (1913). 
The  latter  gives,  p.  214,  note  3,  the  previous  literature  of  the  subject. 
03  Cp.  Golther,  p.  28. 


188  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  great  heroes  had  enfances,  including  occasionally  some  ro- 
mantic narrative  concerning  their  parents,  so  that  when  the  legend 
of  Tristan  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  poet  familiar  with  French 
epical  tradition,  Tristan,  too,  was  provided  with  a  set  of  youthful 
adventures.  The  name,  for  which  the  hero's  tragical  fate  sug- 
gested a  connection  with  French  triste,  set  the  poet's  imagination 
to  work,  and  we  have  as  a  result  the  sorrowful  birth  of  the  cha- 
racter. Then  for  the  last  division  of  the  romance  —  the  elements 
here  also  seem  plain.  The  man  loved  by  two  wives  was  one  of  the 
common  themes  of  mediaeval  romance,  Eliduc,  the  lay  by  Marie 
de  France,  being  perhaps  the  most  famous  example  of  it.  Combine 
with  this,  now,  the  classical  legend  of  Oenone,  the  jealous  wife 
of  Paris,  who  is  skilled  in  the  healing  art,  but  refuses  to  save 
her  wounded  husband,  from  jealousy  of  her  rival  Helen,  and  we 
have  the  essentials  of  the  concluding  episode  in  our  romance,64 
beginning  with  the  expulsion  of  Tristan  after  his  second  detection 
with  Iseult. 

To  be  sure,  Iseult  of  Cornwall  retains  the  knowledge  of  the 
healing  art  which  she  had  evidently  possessed  already  in  the  Celtic 
legend,  so  in  this  respect  the  conditions  required  that  she,  rather 
than  her  rival,  should  resemble  the  nymph  of  the  classical  legend, , 
but  the  general  situation  is  obviously  the  same,  and  I  see  no  reason 
for  rejecting  Golther's  identification  of  the  stories.  On  the  other 
hand,  with  equal  confidence  we  may  accept  the  motif  of  the  white 
and  black  sails  as  derived  from  the  legend  of  Theseus,  in  which 
the  hero's  father,  Aegeus,  perished  in  consequence  of  his  son's 
forgetfulness  in  regard  to  this  same  signal.  Servius's  commentary 
on  the  Aeneid,  doubtless,  made  this  incident  the  common  property 
of  the  Middle  Ages.65 

64  The  author  of  the  primitive  French  Tristan  poem,  doubtless, 
transferred  to  Iseult  of  Brittany  some  traits  that  originally  beloDged 
to  Iseult  of  Cornwall.  Cp.,  especially,  the  incident  of  the  water  which 
splashes  up  under  the  latter' s  dress  and  which,  she  says,  is  bolder 
than  Tristan  has  been.  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  415,  points  out  that  this 
incident  occurs,  also,  in  the  Diarmaid  and  Grainne  saga  —  so  that 
we  may  accept  it  as  attached  to  the  original  of  Iseult  of  Cornwall 
in  the  Celtic  Aithed. 

66  This  was  pointed  out  by  Bedier,  II,  138f.  To  be  sure,  Brugger, 
Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen,  CXXX,  124ff.  (1913), 


Tristan  189 

It  will  be  observed  that  even  the  central  theme  of  the  primi- 
tive French  Tristan,  as  outlined  above,  is  a  much  more  complex 
affair  than  the  Irish  Aitheda  (Diarmaid  und  Grainne  etc.),  from 
which  we  have  derived  it.  We  have,  in  addition  to  the  motifs  of  the 
Aitheda,  the  combat  with  Morholt,  the  two  voyages  to  Ireland, 
the  first  of  which  involves  the  hero's  healing  at  the  hands  of  an 
enemy  and  the  second  his  quest  for  the  princess  of  the  beautiful 
hair,  the  part  played  by  Bringvain,  besides  the  series  of  inci- 
dents, in  which  the  lovers  evade  detection.  Now,  the  combat  with 
the  Irish  champion,  Morholt,  and  the  voyage  for  healing  mani- 
festly belong  together,  and,  inasmuch  as  the  name  of  this  strange 
champion  seems  Celtic,66  we  may  accept  both  combat67  and  voyage 
as  of  Celtic  origin,  although  the  idea  of  a  wound  which  can  be 

disputes  Bediers  conclusion.  He  cites  especially  (pp.  132 ff.)  a  Gaelic 
parallel  (a  tale  written  down  by  J.  G.  Campbell)  as  proving  the  Celtic 
origin  of  the  incident.  But  the  Gaelic  story  is  not  recorded  before 
the  nineteenth  century  and  may  very  well  be,  itself,  derived  from  the 
Theseus  legend.  Miss  Schoepperle,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  185  f., 
and  in  her  Tristan  book,  II,  437 f.  (1913)  is  more  cautious  than 
Brugger.  The  fact  that  the  white  and  black  sail  motif  is  here  combined 
with  a  classical  motif  (that  of  Paris  and  Oenone)  points  strongly,  in 
my  judgment,  to  the  conclusion  that  it,  too,  is  of  classical  origin. 

flfl  The  question  one  must  acknowledge,  is  doubtful,  since  the  name 
is  not  found  in  Celtic,  nor  in  exactly  this  form,  indeed,  anywhere 
outside  of  the  Tristan  poems.  Mor,  however,  means  "sea"  in  the 
Celtic  languages,  and  Loth,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  420,  note  1, 
(1011)  has  derived  Morholt  tentatively  from  an  hypothetical  Old 
Celtic  morispolto  =  "sea-splitter".  Miss  Schoepperle,  II,  331,  note  1, 
seems  to  me  to  have  misunderstood  Muret,  Romania,  XVII,  606 
(1888)  when  she  imputes  to  him  the  idea  (which  is  really  Golther's, 
p.  17)  that  Morholt's  name  was  connected  with  that  of  the  Fomori 
(giants  or  marine  monsters  in  Irish  saga).  Muret  merely  means  that 
originally  Morholt  was  one  of  these  Celtic  giants.  Like  Miss  Schoepperle, 
loc.  cit.,  I  cannot  regard  the  story  from  the  Cuchullin  saga  (Cuchullin 
frees  a  princess  who  has  been  offered  as  a  tribute  to  the  Fomorians) 
which  Deutschbein,  Beiblatt  zu  Anglia,  XV,  16ff.  (1904)  and  Studien 
zur  Sagengeschichte  Englands,  172 f.  (Cothen,  1906)  cites,  as  having 
any  historical  connection  with  the  Morholt  episode. 

Morhold  occurs  as  a  Germanic  name  in  eighth  century  documents 
(Cp.  E.  Foerstemann,  Altdeutsches  Namenbuch,  col.  1118),  but  the 
similarity  is  probably  accidental. 


190  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

healed  only  by  an  enemy  is  by  no  means  confined  to  the  Celts.68 
It  has  been  suggested  that  this  episode  reflects  early  historical 
conditions,  when  the  Pictish  population  of  Scotland  were  being 
subjugated  by  Irish  invaders.69  This  would  seem  to  be  a  plau- 
sible conjecture,  and  if  Tristan  was,  indeed,  in  the  beginning,  a 
Pictish  hero,  no  incident  is  so  likely  to  have  belonged  to  him  in 
that  character  as  that  of  this  combat  and  its  sequel.  The  second 
voyage  in  which  Tristan  goes  forth  on  his  indeterminate  search 
for  the  unknown  golden-haired  princess,  owes  its  suggestion,  too, 
no  doubt,  to  a  favorite  class  of  Celtic  tales — the  lmrama  (tales  of 
fantastic  voyages),70  one  of  which  in  its  Christianized  form,  the 
legend  of  St.  Brendan,  enjoyed  a  wide-spread  popularity  in  the 
Middle  Ages  throughout  Western  Europe.  In  the  episode  of  the 
Tristan  under  consideration,  however,  the  object  of  the  voyage 
has  no  parallel  in  these  Celtic  tales,71  and  the  imram  motif  seems 
plainly  combined  with  that  of  a  hero's  quest  of  a  bride  for  a  king,72 
and  in  a  specific  form  which  is  apparently  unknown  to  the  Celts  — 
the  search  for  the  girl,  the  strands  of  whose  hair  have  been  brought 
to  the  king  by  a  bird.73  A  distinguished  scholar,  indeed,  once 
regarded  this  adaptation  of  the  well-known  fairy-tale  of  the  Fair 
Maid  with  the  Golden  Locks  as  the  fundamental  theme  of  the 


67  That  the  combat  should  take  place  on  an  island  was  once 
regarded  as  a  Scandinavian  (Viking)  feature  of  the  story,  another 
example  of  the  holmgang.  Cp.  Golther,  p.  16.  Miss  Schoepperle, 
however,  has  shown  that  island-combats  were  stock  features  of  the 
Old  French  romances  and  that  the  combat  in  the  Tristan  does  not 
conform  to  the  rules  of  the  holmgang.  Cp.  her  paper  in  the  Rad- 
cliffe  College  Monographs,  No.  15,  (1910)  and  her  Tristan  and  Isolt, 
II,  338  ff. 

68  For  examples  from  different  parts  of  the  world  see  Schoepperle, 
II,  377ff. 

69  Golther,  Tristan  und  Isolde,  pp.  15  f.  (1907). 

70  For  a  discussion  of  the  lmrama  see  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  Iwain, 
566 ff.  For  MSS.  and  editions  cp.  G.  Dottin,  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII, 
26  (1912). 

71  Cp.  Schoepperle,  I,  188ff. 

72  Miss  Schoepperle,  I,  188,  note  3,  gives  a  very  full  list  of  such 
stories  in  the  various  literatures. 

73  Miss  Schoepperle's  list,  just  cited,  contains  no  Celtic  tale  with 
this  particular  feature. 


Tristan  191 

Tristan  legend,74  but  the  fairy  tale  in  question,  beautiful  as  it  is,  is 
too  gossamerlike  ever  to  have  suggested  the  most  passionate  love- 
story  in  literature,  and,  since  the  publication  of  Miss  Schoepperle's 
researches,  we  may  safely  regard  this  adaptation  as  merely  a  later 
embellishment  —  introduced,  no  doubt,  by  a  French  poet  —  of 
what  is,  in  itself,  a  secondary  element  in  the  legend,  the  second 
voyage  to  Ireland.75 

74  Cp.  W.  Goltker,  "Die  Jungfrau  mit  den  goldenen  Haaren", 
Studien  zur  Litteraturgeschichte,  Michael  Bernays  gewidmet  von 
Schillern  tend  Freunden,  p.  173  (Hamburg  and  Leipzig,  1893)  — 
also,  Reinhold  Kohler,  "Tristan  und  Isolde  und  das  Marchen  von  der 
goldhaarigen  Jungfrau  und  von  den  Wassern  des  Todes  und  des  Lebens", 
Germania,  XI,  389 ff.  (1866)  —  reprinted  in  Kohler,  Kleinere 
Schriften,  II,  328 ff.  (Berlin,  1900).  For  additional  notes  on  the 
theme  cp.  Felix  Liebrecht,  Gerrnania,  XII  (1867),  and  Kohlers 
Kleinere  Schriften,  I,  511. 

76  This  ends  our  discussion  of  the  Tristan  romances;  for  the 
endeavor  of  Zenker  to  connect  the  saga  of  this  hero  with  the  Persian 
epic  of  Wis  and  Ramin  has  been  generally  pronounced  a  failure. 
Cp.  his  Die  Tristansage  und  das  persische  Epos  von  Wis  und 
Ramin  (Erlangen,  1910)  —  also,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXV,  715 ff. 
(1912).  Zenker,  p.  326,  cites  Hermann  Ethe,  Die  hofische  und 
romantische  Poesie  der  Perser,  p.  38  (Hamburg,  1887),  as  the  first 
to  call  attention  to  the  resemblance  of  the  stories.  So,  too,  W.  Hertz, 
Tristan  und  Isolde  von  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  p.  478  (Stuttgart 
and  Berlin,   1907). 

On  other  Tristans,  besides  the  famous  hero,  see  W.  Hertz,  ibid, 
pp.  482 ff.  Of  most  interest,  perhaps,  is  the  "Tristanz  qui  onques  ne 
rist,"  who  figures  in  a  number  of  romances,  cited,  loc.  cit.,  by  Hertz 
—  first  of  all,  in  Chretien's  Erec,  1,  1713,  in  the  well-known  list 
of  Arthur's  knights.  It  has  been  customary  to  regard  this  character 
as  drawn  from  oral  tradition,  but  he  was,  unquestionably,  the  invention 
of  a  Frenchman  —  no  doubt,  a  French  poet  —  to  whom  the  similarity 
of  Tristan  and  triste  suggested  the  nickname.  It  occurred  to  the 
author  of  L'Atre  Perillos  to  make  him  play  the  part  of  a  host 
(cp.  1.  5392)  in  a  brief  episode  of  that  poem  —  otherwise  (in  Chretien 
and  the  other  romancers),  he  is  a  mere  name.  My  own  belief  is  that 
the  character  is  an  invention  for  the  nonce  of  Chretien's,  who  was 
put  to  it  to  make  out  the  long  list  of  knights  in  the  above-mentioned 
passage  and  who,  consequently,  fabricated  this  new  character,  like 
some  other  characters  in  the  list.  He  derived  the  name  primarily,  of 
course,  from  the  renowned  lover  of  Iseult,  and  the  accompanying 
nickname  was  supplied  to  him,  partly,  by  an  obvious  play  on  words, 
and,  partly,  by  the  necessity  of  finding  a  rhyme  to  sist. 


Chapter  VI. 
Lancelot, 

With  no  character  of  the  Arthurian  cycle,  except  Arthur  and 
Guinevere,  is  the  modern  reader  so  familiar  as  with  Lancelot. 
He  does  not  appear,  however,  in  the  earliest  Arthurian  texts  and 
he  is  in  everything  but  name  purely  a  literary  creation  —  more 
clearly  so,  perhaps,  than  any  other  character  of  Arthurian  ro- 
mance. He  is  not  mentioned  in  Welsh  literature  or  in  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth  and  his  derivatives;  he  does  not  figure  in  the  bas- 
reliefs  of  the  cathedral  at  Modena.  Indeed,  the  first  we  hear  of 
him  is  in  Chretien's  Erec,  (1.  1694)  in  the  well-known  list  of 
Round  Table  knights.  As  is  always  the  case  in  the  verse-ro- 
mances, Chretien  in  this  passage  gives  Gawain  the  first  place. 
The  second  place  he  awards  to  Erec,  because  that  character  is  the 
hero  of  this  particular  romance.  The  third  he  gives  to  Lancelot 
del  Lac.  Now  we  have  not  a  trace  of  Lancelot  in  Celtic  saga  or 
earlier  Arthurian  texts,  and  Chretien  himself  does  not  allude  to 
the  character  again  in  this  poem,  so  that  it  seems  surprising  that 
he  should  in  this  off-hand  way  assign  Lancelot  so  high  a  place 
among  Arthurian  heroes. 

In  view  of  the  circumstances  just  mentioned,  however,  this 
Erec  passage  would  hardly  seem  to  justify  the  inference  that  Lance- 
lot really  occupied  any  very  high  place  in  Celtic  tradition.  In  fact, 
when  Welshmen  came  to  translate  the  Arthurian  romances,  they 
thought  that  in  Perceval  they  recognized  their  native  Peredur  and 
they  accordingly  substituted  the  latter's  name  for  Perceval;  simi- 
larly they  substituted  Gwalchmei  for  Gawain,  Llacheu  for  Lohot, 
etc.  But  they  knew  nothing  of  Lancelot,  and  consequently,  they 
kept  the  French  form  of  his  name  in  Welsh  orthography:  Lawn- 
selot.1  As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  no  ground  for  believing  that 

1  Cp.  Foerster,  Lancelot,  pp.  XXXIX  f. 


Lancelot  193 

the  name  is  Welsh;  more  likely,  it  is  a  mere  French  adaptation 
of  Breton  Lancelin,  which  is,  itself,  ultimately  of  Germanic 
origin.2  The  most  probable  explanation  of  the  character's  promi- 
nence in  the  above-mentioned  list  is  that  Chretien  was  already 
planning  to  make  him  the  hero  of  a  poem:  the  name  had  taken 
his  fancy  or  he  was  influenced  by  some  chance  circumstance  in  this 
determination.  In  any  event,  a  few  years  later  he  did  make  him 
the  hero  of  his  well-known  poem,  Lancelot. 

In  the  Cliges,  which  comes  immediately  after  Erec  in  order 
of  composition,  Lancelot  still  holds  (by  implication)  the  third 
place,3  but  Perceval,  who  was  not  mentioned  in  the  Erec  list, 
now  holds  the  second  place  —  for  the  same  reason,  perhaps,  as 
that  which  has  just  been  suggested  in  the  case  of  Lancelot;  for 
Perceval,  too,  was  later  on  made  the  hero  of  one  of  Chretien's  ro- 
mances. In  the  passage  of  the  Cliges  just  referred  to  Lancelot 
is  overcome  by  Cliges  in  a  tournament  —  otherwise  he  does  not 
appear  in  the  romance.  He  is,  however,  the  hero  of  the  next 
poem  composed  by  Chretien  —  the  Conte  de  la  Charrette,  or 
Lancelot*  —  and  it  was  this  romance  which  ultimately  established 
his  fame. 

Now  the  main  theme  of  this  poem  is  the  abduction  of  Guine- 
vere by  an  evil  prince  named  Meleagant  and  her  rescue  by  Lance- 
lot.   We  may  summarize  it  briefly  as  follows: 

Meleagant  appears  at  Arthur's  court  and  boasts  that  he  holds 
many  of  the  king's  subjects  in  captivity.  Arthur,  however,  can 
free  them  if  he  will  commit  Guinevere  to  the  care  of  a  knight 
who  will  fight  a  single  combat  with  him.  If  Meleagant  loses,  the 
prisoners  are  to  be  freed;  if  he  is  victorious,  Guinevere  will  re- 
main his  captive.  Just  then  Kay,  the  seneschal,  threatens  to  leave 
the  court  and  Arthur  can  only  keep  him  by  the  inconsiderate  pro- 


e  Cp.  H.  Zimmer,   Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LiU.,  XIH1,  43  ff.  (1891). 

8  Cp.  11.  4765  ff. 

4  Chretien,  11.  24f.  says:  "Del  Chevalier  de  la  Charrete  romance 
Crestiiens  son  livre,"  but,  for  convenience'  sake,  recent  scholars  have 
been  accustomed  to  cite  the  romance  after  its  hero's  name,  and  I  shall 
follow  their  example. 


194  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

mise  that  he  will  grant  him  any  request  he  may  proffer.    To  the 
king's  dismay,  Kay  demands  that  he  shall  be  the  queen's  escort. 
Nevertheless,  Arthur  is  bound  by  his  promise  and  so  permits  Kay 
to  ride  off  with  Meleagant  and  Guinevere.    He,  himself,  and  his 
knights  follow  later  on.    Gawain  meets  first  the  seneschal's  horse 
riderless  and  bloody  and  somewhat  further  on  Lancelot  (not  named 
yet,    however).    Lancelot's  horse  is  tired   out   and  Gawain  lends 
him  a  fresh  one.    Shortly  after,  Gawain  finds  his  horse  dead  and 
all  the  signs  of  a  fierce  combat  about  the  spot  —  then,  he  comes 
again  upon  Lancelot  who,  in  his  hurry  to  get  forward  after  the 
loss  of  his  steed,  had  got  into  a  cart  —  with  some  hesitation,  it 
is  true,  because  that  was  contrary  to  the  rules  of  chivalry.    This 
cart  was  driven  by  a  dwarf.    New,   Meleagant  was  the  son   of 
a  good  king,  Baudemagus,  whose  land  was  surrounded  by  a  deep 
water,  and  this  water  could  be  crossed  by  only  two  bridges  — 
one  a  sword,  with  the  edge  turned  upwards,  the  other  under  the 
water.    Lancelot  chooses  the  first.     No  account  is  given  of  his 
crossing   in  the  poem,   but  he  gets   over  in   safety,  fights   with 
Meleagant,  and  delivers  Guinevere,  who,  nevertheless,  receives  him 
coldly,  being  offended  at  his  momentary  hesitation  before  moun- 
ting the  cart.  Lancelot,  in  despair,  tries  to  commit  suicide;  Guine- 
vere, hearing  a  rumour  of  his  death,  is  overwhelmed  with  grief, 
and  on  his  next  appearance  receives  him  with  the  greatest  favour. 
They  pass  the  night  together,  Lancelot  gaining  access  to  the  queen's 
chamber  by  means  of  a  heavily  barred  window  and  severely  woun- 
ding his  hands  in  wrenching  asunder  the  bars.  The  traces  of  blood 
on  the  bed-clothes  causes  the  queen  to  be  accused  of  a  liaison  with 
Kay,   who,   severely  wounded,   is  sleeping    in   the   ante-chamber. 
Lancelot  undertakes  to  prove  Guinevere's  innocence  by  a  combat 
with  Meleagant,  which  shall  take  place  at  Arthur's  court;    but 
having  set  out  to  seek  Gawain,  he  is  treacherously  decoyed  into 
prison  by  his  foe.    Meleagant,  by  means  of  forged  letters,  per- 
suades  the  queen  that  Lancelot  has   returned   to  court,   whither 
Guinevere  repairs,  escorted  by  Gawain,  who  has  meanwhile  arriv- 
ed on  the  scene.   Lancelot,  who  has  been  released  on  parole  by  his 
jailor's  wife,  to  attend  a  tourney,  and  who  acts  there  successively 


Lancelot  195 

the  part  of  a  coward  and  a  hero,  according  to  the  queen's  injunc- 
tion, is  subsequently  walled  up  in  a  tower  by  Meleagant.  Here 
Chretien's  portion  of  the  poem  ends,  but  it  was  continued  with 
his  approval  and  under  his  direction  for  about  1000  lines  more 
by  a  certain  Godefroi  de  Lagny  (Leigni).5  According  to  this  con- 
tinuation, he  was  released  from  prison  by  Meleagant's  sister,  and, 
reaching  court  at  the  last  moment,  overcomes  and  slays  Meleagant. 

Although  in  the  subsequent  history  of  literature  it  became 
the  most  influential  of  Chretien's  poems,  with  the  exception  of 
the  Perceval,  critics  generally  have  agreed  that  the  Lancelot  is 
the  poorest  in  construction  of  all  the  works  of  this  author.  He 
tells  us  at  the  beginning  of  the  romance  (11.  26  ff.)  that  his 
patroness,  Marie  de  Champagne,  gave  him  the  matiere  et  san6 
(matter  and  meaning)  of  the  poem  and  that  he  took  pains  to  put 
into  it  nothing  but  sa  painne  et  santancion  (labor  and  thought^. 
Of  the  defects7  just  referred  to  the  most  notable  perhaps  are  the 
following:  1.  Why  should  not  Meleagant  fight  out  at  Arthur's 
court  the  question  as  to  the  possession  of  the  queen,  instead  of 
going  off  with  his  adversary  to  settle  it  at  some  indefinite  time 
later?  The  explanation,  no  doubt,  is  that  the  abduction  originally 
took  place  in  a  wood  and  the  author  here  is  simply  making  an 
awkward  attempt  to  connect  the  adventure  with  the  court,  which 


6  Foerster,  Chretien  Worterbuch,  pp.  72 *f..  owing  to  linguistic 
considerations,  identifies  this  place  with  Lagny  in  the  department  of 
Seine-et-Marne.     Nothing  is  known  of  Godefroi,  himself. 

For  the  interpretation  of  these  words  see,  particularly,  W.  A. 
Nitze,  "San  et  matiere  dans  les  oeuvres  de  Chretien  de  Troyes", 
Romania,  XLIV,  14ff.  (1915).  San  is  derived  from  Latin  sensus, 
which  was  used  as  a  synonym  of  sapientia  and  scientia,  when  the 
wisdom  or  knowledge  was  given  by  God.  Nitze  traces  sensus  with 
this  meaning  back  to  the  apocryphal  Liber  Sapientiae  (accepted  as 
canonical  during  the  Middle  Ages),  e.  g.,  VII,  7.  Chretien  adopted 
it  from  the  scholastic  usage  of  his  time,  in  which  it  was  applied  to 
interpretation  —  especially,  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  scriptures. 

7  In  her  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot  du  Lac,  pp.  43 f.  (London? 
1901),  Miss  Weston  has  given  a  full  summary  of  the  defects  of  con- 
struction in  the  romance. 


196  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

is  the  customary  starting-point  of  his  Arthurian  tales.8  2.  We 
are  told  that  the  kingdom  of  Gorre  —  that  is,  the  kingdom  of 
Meleagant's  father  —  is  surrounded  by  water  which  no  one  can 
pass  save  by  means  of  the  two  seemingly  impossible  bridges  — 
the  sword  bridge  and  the  subaqueous  bridge.  Lancelot  is  said 
to  have  chosen  the  former,  but  we  hear  no  more  of  this  striking 
conception,  and  as  if  no  explanation  were  necessary,  we  find  the 
hero  next  already  in  the  kingdom  of  Gorre  and  pursuing  his  ad- 
ventures there.  One  might  add  that  it  is  strange  that  the  cart 
which  Lancelot  gets  into  should  disappear  from  the  story.  It  may 
be  that  Marie's  own  knowledge  of  the  tradition  of  Guinevere's 
abduction  was  imperfect  and  that  Chretien  followed  his  mistress 
too  literally,  without  attempting  to  supply  the  deficiencies. 

The  matiere  of  Chretien's  poem  is  simply  the  abduction  and 
rescue  of  the  queen  —  the  tradition  to  that  effect  being  certainly 
anterior  to  his  Lancelot.  Everything  else  in  the  romance,  we  may 
confidently  assert,  is  subsidiary  to  this  theme.  Some  of  the  docu- 
mentary evidence  in  regard  to  this  tradition  is  independent  of 
Chretien,  beyond  question.  There  is  even  a  fourteenth  century 
Welsh  dialogue  between  Arthur  and  his  queen9  that  seems  to  hint 
at  an  incident  of  this  kind  in  which  Kay  plays  the  role  of  ab- 
ductor, but  the  piece  is  too  obscure  to  be  of  much  use.  We  have 
indisputably,  however,  a  record  of  Celtic  tradition  on  the  subject 
in  the  Vita  Gildae,  attributed  (rightly,  it  would  seem)  to  Caradoc 
of  Lancarvan  and  written  probably  about  1150.10    Here  it  is  said 

8  So  Miss  Weston,  loc.  cit. 

9  See   the  translation  in  J.  Rhys's  Arthurian  Legend,    pp.  57  f. 
10  See  the  passages  in  Mommsen's  edition  of  Gildas  and  Nennius, 

Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica  (1894),  p.  109  —  also,  G.  Paris's 
article,  Romania,  X,  491,  note  (1881).  In  his  Melanges  d'Histoire 
Bretonne,  pp.  267 ff.  (Paris,  1907),  F.  Lot  has  discussed  the  date, 
authorship  and  sources  of  this  (insular)  Vita  Gildae.  The  author, 
(Caradoc,  most  likely)  came  originally  from  Nantcarvan  (in  South 
Wales),  it  would  seem,  and  afterwards  was  a  monk  at  Glastonbury. 
The  work  was  anterior  to  1166;  for  a  MS.  of  it  from  that  year  is 
extant.  J.  A.  Herbert  would  place  the  Vita  in  the  "middle  of  the 
twelfth  century,  perhaps  even  a  little  earlier."  Cp.  his  letter  quoted 
by  Lot,  op.  cit.,  pp.  275  f.,  note  2. 


Lancelot  197 

that  Gildas,  having  been  stripped  of  his  possessions  by  pirates, 
came  to  Glastonbury,  whilst  Melvas  (Melwas)  was  ruling  in  Som- 
erset (aestiva  regio).11  This  wicked  king  carried  off  Guinevere 
(Guennuvar)  to  Glastonbury,  which  was  a  difficult  place  to  take, 


11  Cp.  on  the  subject  of  Melwas,  especially,  F.  Lot,  Romania, 
XXIV,  327ff.  (1895),  XXVII,  553  (1898). 

As  Lot  remarks  in  the  first  of  these  articles  ("Melvas,  roi  des 
morts  et  l'ile  de  verre"),  the  author  of  the  Vita  Gildae  makes  Melwas 
King  of  Somerset,  simply  because  Glastonbury  was  in  Somerset.  For 
a  similar  reason  (the  chief  city  of  this  shire  being  Bath),  according 
to  Lot,  Godefroi  de  Leigni,  who  doubtless  knew  in  some  form  or 
other  the  story  concerning  Melwas  in  the  Vita  Gildae,  in  his  con- 
tinuation of  Chretien's  Lancelot  (1.  6255),  made  Bade  (Bath)  the 
capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Meleagant's  (Melwas's)  father  (Baudemagus). 
This  conflicts,  of  course,  with  his  acceptance  of  Gorre  as  Melwas's 
land,  for  whatever  region  Gorre  is  to  be  identified  with  (cp.  the  next 
note),  it  was  certainly  not  Somerset.  Consistency,  however  is  not  to 
be  expected  of  a  romancer. 

Melwas  is,  doubtless,  identical  with  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's 
Melga  (V,  16  and  VI,  3)  and  Malvasius,  rex  Islandiae  (IX,  12, 
probably  for  Irlandiae.  Cp.  Zimmer,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XII  *, 
253)  —  according  to  Rhys  {Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend, 
p.  344),  also,  with  Maelwys,  son  of  Baeddan  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen 
{Loth's  Mabinogion %,  I,  261),  Baeddan  being  the  same,  according  to 
this  scholar,  as  the  Bademagus  of  Chretien's  Lancelot.  He  regards 
both  Maelwys  and  Bademagus  as  ultimately  of  Irish  origin.  H.  L.  D. 
Ward  had  already  expressed  this  view  in  regard  to  Melwas.  Cp. 
Romania,  XII,  512  (1883).  More  plausible,  to  my  mind,  is  Lot's 
derivation  (loc.  cit.J  of  Melwas  from  Maelvas  (=  Prince  of  Death). 
Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXVIII1,  6,  note  10,  thinks  that 
Ward's  hypothetical  Irish  prince  may  have  been  confounded  with  Lot's 
Maelwas,  "Prince  of  Death".  All  of  this  about  an  Irish  Melwas, 
however,  is  pure  speculation.  So,  too,  with  Brugger's  attempt  to 
prove  (ibid.,  pp.  15  ff.,  26 ff.)  that  Bademagus  is  of  Pictish  origin, 
which  is  a  corollary  of  his  theory  (see  next  note)  that  Gorre  was 
in  Northern  Scotland. 

The  story  of  Guinevere's  abduction  has  been  compared  by  Rhys 
and  others  with  the  Irish  Wooing  of  Etain.  For  the  literature  of 
the  subject,  cp.  Miss  Schoepperle's  Tristan  and  Isolt,  II,  528,  note  3. 
I  do  not  believe,  however,  that  there  is  any  historical  connection 
between  the  two. 


198  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

owing  to  the  river  and  marsh  that  protected  it.  Arthur  besieged 
it  with  an  immense  host,  and  a  great  conflict  was  about  to  ensue, 
when  the  Abbot  of  Glastonbury  and  Gildas  intervened  and,  on 
their  advice,  Melwas  restored  the  queen  to  Arthur.  The  two  kings 
then  gave  much  land  to  the  abbey.  In  this  text  —  the  Vita 
Gildae  —  Glastonbury  is  represented  as  a  rendering  of  the  British 
name  for  the  place  —  Ynys  witryn  (Ynisgutrin)  or  City  of  Glass 
but  this  absurd  etymology  was  invented  by  some  monk  of  the 
local  abbey  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century  —  doubtless, 
by  the  author  of  the  Vita  Gildae,  himself.12    The  name  is  really 


13  The  passage  (p.  110  of  Moimnsen's  edition)  runs  as  follows: 
" Ynisgutrin  nominata  fuit;  antiquitus  Glastonia  et  adhuc  nominatur  a 
Britannis  indigenis;  ynis  in  Britannico  sermone  insula  Latine;  gutrin 
vero  vitrea.  Sed  post  adventum  Angligenarum  et  expulsis  Britannis, 
scilicet  Walensibus,  revocata  est  Glastigberi  ex  ordine  primi  vocabuli, 
scilicet  glas  Anglice  vitrum  Latine,  beria  civitas,  inde  Glastiberia  id 
est  Vitrea  Civitas." 

In  the  De  Antiquitate  Glastoniensis  Ecclesiae  of  William  of 
Malmesbury  (Migne,  Patrologia  Latina,  vol.  179,  cols.  1682ff.) 
" Ynisgutrin"  again  appears  as  a  name  for  Glastonbury,  along  with 
"insula  Avalloniae".    Following  is  the  text  of  this  oft-quoted  passage: 

"Legitur  in  antiquis  Britonum  gestis,  quod  a  Boreali  Britanniae 
parte  venerunt  in  occidentem  duodecim  fratres,  et  tenuerunt  plurimas 
regiones.  Venedociam,  Demetiam,  Buthir  [for  Guhir],  Kedweli,  quas 
proavus  eorum  Cuneda  tenuerunt:  nomina  eorum  fratram  inferius  anno- 
tantur  Ludnerth  [for  Iudnerth],  Morgen,  Catgur,  Cathmor,  Merguid, 
Morvined,  Morehel,  Morcant,  Boten,  Morgen,  Mortineil  [for  Mormeil], 
Glasteing  [for  Glastenig].  Hie  est  ille  Glasteing  [for  Glastenig], 
qui  per  mediterraneos  Anglos,  secus  villam  quae  dicitur  Escebtiorne, 
scrofam  suam  usque  ad  Wellis,  et  a  Wellis  per  inviam  et  aquosam 
viam  quae  Sugewege,  id  est  Scrofae  via,  dicitur,  sequens  porcellos 
suos,  juxta  ecclesiam  de  qua  nobis  sermo  est,  lactentem  sub  malo 
invenit,  unde  usque  ad  nos  emanavit,  quod  mala  mali  illius  Eald- 
eyrcenes  epple,  id  est  Veteris  Ecclesiae  poma  vocantur:  sus  quoque 
ealdcyre  (sic)  suge  idcirco  nominabatur,  quae  cum  ceterae  sues  quatuor 
pedes  habeant,  mirum  dictu,  ista  habuit  octo.  Hie  igitur  Glasteing, 
postquam  insulam  illam  ingressus,  earn  multimodis  bonis  vidit  affluentem, 
cum  omni  familia  sua  in  ea  venit  habitare,  cursumque  vitae  suae  ibidem 
peregit.  Ex  ejus  progenie  et  familia  ei  succedente  locus  ille  primitus 
dicitur  populatus,  haec  de  antiquis  Britonum  libris  sunt. 


Lancelot  199 

Anglo-Saxon  and  means  the  "city  of  the  Glaestings"  —  Glaesting 
being,  of  course,  a  family  name.    Nevertheless,  Gaston  Paris  has 


"Haec  itaque  insula  primo  Yniswitrin,  a  Britonibus  dicta,  deinum 
ab  Anglis,  terram  sibi  subjugantibus,  interpretato  priore  vocabulo,  dicia 
est  sua  lingua  Glastinbiry;  vel  de  Glasteing,  de  quo  praemisimus. 
Etiam  insula  Avalloniae  celebriter  nominatur,  cujus  vocabuli  haec  fuit 
origo.  Supradictum  est,  quod  Glasteing  scrofam  suam  sub  arbore 
pomifera  juxta  vetustam  ecclesiaui  invenit,  ubi  quia  priuiuui  adveniens 
poma  in  partibus  illis  rarissinia  reperit,  insulam  Avalloniae  sua  lingua, 
id  est  insulam  poniorum  liominavit.  Avalla  enim  Britonice  poma  inter- 
pretatur  Latine;  vel  cognominatur  de  quodam  Avalloc,  qui  ibidem  cum 
suis  filiabus,  propter  loci  secretum,  fertur  inhabitasse." 

W.  W.  Newell,  however  has  shown,  PMLA,  XVIII,  474 ff.,  492f. 
(1903),  that,  like  all  other  Arthurian  passages  in  the  De  Antiquitate, 
this  passage  is  due  to  an  interpolator.  His  results  are  accepted  by 
F.  Lot,  Melanges  d'histoire  bretonne,  pp.  277 ff.  (Paris,  1907),  although 
the  latter  previously  in  his  "Glastonbury  et  Avalon",  Romania,  XXVII, 
564 ff.  (1898),  had  regarded  it  as  genuine.  .Moreover,  Lot  is  disposed 
{Melanges,  p.  283)  to  identify  this  interpolator  with  the  author  of 
the  insular  Vita  Gildae.  Since  the  publication  of  Newell's  paper, 
however;  it  is  hardly  open  to  question  that  the  identification  of  Glaston- 
bury with  Avalon  was  simply  the  consequence  of  the  fraud  of  1191, 
when  the  monks  of  Glastonbury  pretended  that  they  had  discovered 
there  the  tomb  of  Arthur  and  his  consort.  The  interpolator,  accordingly, 
used  the   Vita  Gildae,  but  was  not  its  author. 

In  "Zu  Wilhelm  von  Malmesbury",  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.  XX,  316ff. 
(1896),  R.  Thurneysen  has  pointed  out  that  the  story  of  Glasteing  and 
his  son  is  of  Irish  origin,  being  developed  out  of  an  incident  in  the 
legend  of  St.  Patrick,  and  Newell,  op.  cit.,  p.  476,  notes  that  the 
incident  of  the  pigs  and  appletree,  which  guide  the  founder  to  the  site 
of  the  new  city,  is  imitated  from  Virgil's  Aeneid,  (story  of  Aeneas  and 
the  founding  of  Alba  Longa).  The  fanciful  etymology  which  connects 
Avalon  with  the  Welsh  word  for  apple,  "aval  (afal)",  is,  at  least, 
as  old  as  the  Vita  Merlini  (middle  of  the  twelfth  century),  ascribed 
to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth;  for  there  (1.  908)  the  island  (Celtic  Elysium) 
to  which  the  wounded  Arthur  is  borne  is  called  "Insula  Pomorum". 
Hence  Glastonbury,  having  been  identified  with  Avalon,  is  here  also  called 
"insula  pomorum". 

The  alternative  derivation  of  Avalon,  suggested  by  the  interpolator, 
viz.,  from  a  supposed  Avalloc,  who  once  lived  at  Glastonbury  with 
his  daughters,  was  accepted  as  correct  by  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV, 
327 ff.  (1895).     Lot  expresses  there  the  belief  that  this  Avalloc   was 


200  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

argued  justly,  no  doubt,  in  his  classical  articles  on  Lancelot,13 
that  the  narrative  of  the  Vita  Gildae  here  preserves  a  bit  of  Celtic 
mythology,  though  the  localization  is  arbitrary.  The  author  of 
that  work,  being  a  Celt,  would  naturally  be  familiar  with  the 
Celtic  conception  of  the  Otherworld  as  a  Tower  of  Glass,  and 
having  hit  upon  the  etymology  for  Glastonbury,  just  cited,  and 
being  essentially  a  romancer,  he  might  very  easily  locate  at  Glas- 
tonbury this  story  of  an  Otherworld  king.  "Isle  de  Voirre"  — 
the  name  of  the  kingdom  of  this  same  Melwas  (Maheloas),  accor- 
ding to  Chretien's  Erec,  11.  1940ff.  —  represents  a  confusion 
of  two  Celtic  conceptions  of  the  Otherworld  —  first,  as  the  Is- 
land of  Avalon,  secondly,  as  a  Tower  of  Glass.1*  In  this  passage 
of  the  Erec,  Maheloas  (Melwas)  is  represented  as  king  of  an  ideal 
land  —  plainly,  the  Celtic  Elysium  —  where  there  is  no  winter, 
yet  where  it  is  never  too  warm  —  an  aestiva  regio,  in  short,  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  mortal  ken.    It  is  still  further  obvious  that 


a  god  and  that  his  daughters  were  the  women  of  the  Celtic  Elysium. 
(Cp.  too,  J.  Rhys,  Arthurian  Legend,  p.  335).  The  derivation,  however, 
from  Avalloc  is,  doubtless,  just  as  fanciful  as  the  derivation  from  "aval". 
In  any  event,  the  placing  of  Avalloc  at  Glastonbury  is  simply  another 
consequence  of  the  arbitrary  identification  of  that  locality  with  Avalon. 

For  the  Origin  of  Cuneda  and  his  descendants  see  Thurneysen 
and  Newell  in  the  passages  referred  to  above.  J.  Rhys,  Arthurian 
Legend,  ch.  14,  has  discussed  all  the  matters  dealt  with  in  this  note, 
but  he  goes  on  the  erroneous  assumption  that  the  Arthuriana  in  the 
De  Antiquitate  are  really  by  William  of  Malmesbury. 

The  passage  about  Glastonbury  in  the  Speculum  Ecclesiae,  II, 
9  (Rolls  edition,  pp.  49 f.)  of  Gerald  of  Wales  is  paraphrased  from  the 
above-quoted  passage  of  the  De  Antiquitate  —  only  it  is  that  author's 
own  invention  when  he  suggests  that  the  name,  Inis  Gutrin  (so  he 
divides  it),  came  from  the  color  of  the  stream  nearby. 
Romania,  X,  491  (1882),  XII,  512  (1884). 
On  the  Irish  Tower  of  Glass,  cp.  F.  Lot,  Romania,  XXIV, 
328  (1895).  The  Otherworld  is  often  imagined  as  a  Mountain  of 
Glass  in  the  myths  of  the  most  widely  separated  races.  Cp.  Leon 
Pineau,  Les  vieux  chants  populaires  Scandinaves,  II,  272  (Paris, 
1901).  For  the  conception  in  German  folktales  see,  especially,  Hans 
Siuts,  Jenseitsmotive  im  deutschen  Volksmdrchen,  p.  43  (Leipzig, 
1911). 


IS 
14 


Lancelot  201 

the  Melwas  of  the  Vita  Gildae  and  the  Maheloas  of  the  Erec  are 
identical  with  the  Meleagant15  of  the  Lancelot,  whose  chief  city 
is  Bath  (in  Somerset),  and  the  Otherworld  character  of  the  ab- 
ductor's realm16  is  plainest  of  all  in  the  last-named  work,  for 
in  the  Lancelot  (11.  645 ff.)  it  is  called  the  country  from  which 
no  one  returns.  Moreover,  the  conception  of  the  strange  bridges  as 
the  only  means  of  access  to  Meleagant's  land  is  found  far  and 
wide  in  the  mythology  of  various  peoples  connected  with  the  king- 


18  InFoerster's  edition  of  Chretien's  Lancelot,  pp.  xxxiii  ff.  (1899), 
he  and  Zimmer  dispute  the  identity.  Their  criticism  of  the  supposed 
Welsh  sources  for  the  Melwas-Guinevere  story  which  G.  Paris  had 
cited  is  searching  and  shows  that  the  passages  in  question  did  not 
have  the  value  that  the  French  scholar  ascribed  to  them.  It  is  idle, 
however,  to  deny  that  the  Melwas  of  the  Vita  Gildae  is  identical 
with  Maheloas  and  Meleagant. 

In  Romania,  XII,  499  ff.,  G.  Paris  notes  differences  between  the 
accounts  of  the  Rape  of  Guinevere  by  Meleagant  (Mellyagraunce)  in 
Chretien's  and  Malory,  respectively,  and  explains  them  as  due  to  in- 
dependent Welsh  (ultimate)  sources  of  Malory.  Foerster  (edition  of 
Chretien's  Lancelot,  pp.  xxxff.),  however,  rightly  disputes  this. 

16  The  name  of  this  realm  "Gorre"  ("Goirre")  occurs  twice 
(11.  643,  6141)  in  Chretien's  Lancelot.  (Brugger,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u. 
Litt.,  XXVIII  *,  ascribes  the  second  instance  to  Godefroi  de  Leigni, 
but  cp.  Foerster's  edition  of  Lancelot,  pp.  XV f.)  In  the  first  passage 
it  is  described  as  the  kingdom  "Don  nus  estranges  ne  retorne"  (1.  645). 
It  is  evidently  in  Great  Britain,  but  no  wholly  satisfactory  identi- 
fication of  it  with  any  specific  part  of  that  island  has  ever  been 
proposed.  Rhys,  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  329 f.  (1891) 
believes  that  it  is  the  peninsula  of  Gower  (Modern  Welsh  Gwyr, 
Goer)  in  Southwest  Wales  and  that  Bath  (Bade)  is  made  its  capital 
through  confusion.  One  need  not  assume  with  Rhys  that  this  confusion 
is  due  to  the  contamination  of  two  different  Celtic  conceptions  concerning 
the  realm  of  the  dead.  It  is  sufficient  to  observe  that  the  single 
mention  (1.  6255)  of  Bath  (Bade),  as  the  capital  of  Gorre,  occurs  in 
the  continuation  of  Chretien's  poem  by  Godefroi  de  Leigni.  Now, 
whatever  one  may  think  concerning  Chretien's  sources,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  Godefroi  was  drawing  upon  any  Celtic  traditions, 
and,  as  Brugger  remarks,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXVIII1,  7  (1905) 
(although  he  fails  to  observe  that  this  name  occurs  only  in  Godefroi's 
portion  of  the  poem),  the  name  (Bade  =  Bath),  of  King  Bdaemagus's 


202  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

dom  of  the  dead.17    We  may  accept,  then,  the  conception  of  Me- 
leagant's  abduction  of  Guinevere  as  of  Celtic  origin,  although  there 


capital  was,  no  doubt,  suggested  to  the  poet  by  the  name  of  the  king 
himself. 

In  Romania,  XXIV,  332  (1895),  F.  Lot  conjectures  that  Gorre 
may  not  have  been  a  place-name,  originally,  but  derived  simply  from 
Old  Welsh  gutr  (=  glass),  the  kingdom  of  Gorre  being  then  merely 
the  "Isle  of  Glass"  (Celtic  Elysium).  Ibid.,  327 ff.,  he  had  been 
inclined  to  accept  Rhys's  views. 

In  Brugger's  long  article  on  Gorre,  just  cited^  he  concludes  that 
it  is  to  be  identified  with  Strathmore  (a  name  which  he  would  extend, 
it  seems,  to  the  whole  of  ancient  Scotland,  north  of  the  Clyde  and 
the  Forth).  For  the  stages  which  he  supposes  Strathmore  to  have 
traversed  in  becoming  Gorre,  cp.  loc.  cit.,  pp.  63 ff.  He  reaches  his 
conclusions,  however,  through  such  a  maze  of  hazardous  speculations 
that  his  results  inspire  little  confidence.  I  may  say,  in  general,  that 
it  is  highly  improbable  that  the  romancers  in  their  fantastic  composi- 
tions have  preserved  geographical  accuracy,  as  Brugger's  hypothesis 
assumes.  P.  Paris  (Romans  ale  la  Table  Ronde,  II,  111),  says  with 
truth:  "On  ne  peut  trop  repeter  que  nos  romanciers  ne  se  rendaient 
pas  compte  des  localites:  ils  n'inventaient  pas  les  noms,  mais  ils  n'en 
recherchaient  pas  la  valeur  exacte."  In  other  words,  they  made  about 
the  same  use  of  place-names  (and,  I  might  add,  of  other  kinds  of 
names,  as  well)  as,  according  to  Brugger,  himself,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr. 
u.  Litt.,  XXXII2,  127  (1908),  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  did  with  the 
names  which  he  derived  from  Welsh  traditions,  viz.  attach  to  them 
any  fiction  he  chose.  Brugger  (op.  cit.,  XXVIII1,  14)  acknowledges 
the  correctness  of  P.  Pariss  observation,  but  proceeds  on  the  opposite 
principle. 

In  the  consideration  of  names  in  the  romances,  one  has  to  keep 
in  mind  always  the  possibilities  of  manuscript  corruption.  The  number 
of  apparently  new  names  in  these  works  that  have  come  into  existence 
in  this  manner  is  enormous. 

17  Cp.  G.  Paris,  Romania,  XII,  508.  The  literature  concerning 
these  bridges  by  which,  in  the  myths  and  legends  of  various  peoples, 
the  Otherworld  must  be  reached  is  truly  immense,  and  for  publications 
on  the  subject  I  will  refer  the  reader,  above  all,  to  the  notes  to  Miss 
Laura  Hibbard's  article,  "The  Sword  Bridge  of  Chretien  de  Troyes 
and  its  Celtic  Original1',  RR,  IV,  166ff.  (1913)  —  also,  to  H.  R. 
Patch's  "Some  Elements  in  Mediaeval  Descriptions  of  the  Otherworld", 
PMLA,  XXXIH,  601  ff.  (1918),  more  particularly,  the  notes  to  pp.  635  ff. 
For  instances  in  German   folktales,    not  mentioned   by  these   scholars, 


Lancelot  203 

is  no  similar  incident  in  extant  Celtic  stories  of  the  Otherworld, 
but  in  Chretien's  description  this  conception  appears  to  have  been 
profoundly  influenced  by  classical  and  oriental  myths  concerning 
the  kingdom  of  the  dead.  The  translator  of  Ovid  would,  of  course, 
have  been  familiar  with  the  stories  of  Proserpine  and  Eurydice 
and  with  Hercules's  rescue  of  Alcestis  from  Hades.18  On  the  other 
hand,  the  idea  of  the  sword-bridge,  doubtless,  came  to  him  ultima- 


cp.  Hans  Siuts's  Jenseitsmotive  im  deutschen  Volksmarchen,  pp.  41  f. 
(Leipzig,  1911).  Although  taking  Chretien's  sword-bridge  as  Celtic 
in  origin,  Miss  Hibbard  denies  (p.  184)  that  it  ever  had  mythological 
significance.  She  regards  it  (cp.  loc.  cit.,  pp.  177ff.  and  notes)  as 
simply  one  of  the  marvellous  bridges  that  appear  in  the  narratives  of 
fantastic  exploits  performed  by  Celtic  heroes  —  narratives  that  are 
without  mythological  connections.  If  the  sword-bridge  were  really 
Celtic,  Miss  Hibbard's  derivation  would  be  preferable,  for,  as  Patch 
has  observed  (p.  637),  there  is  no  real  place  for  a  bridge  in  the  Celtic 
scheme  of  the  Otherworld.  An  ocean  voyage  is  there  the  essential 
thing.  Patch,  himself,  regards  it  as  derived  from  the  Otherworld  bridge 
either  of  Norse  mythology  (e.  g.  Gylfaginning,  ch.  49)  or  Oriental 
vision.  Marvellous  Otherworld  bridges  (derived  from  the  East,  no 
doubt)  are  common  in  the  vision  literature  of  Western  Europe  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  Cp.  the  examples  cited  by  Miss  Hibbard  in  her  article, 
notes  14 — 21,  from  the  Dialogues  of  Gregory  the  Great,  the  Visio 
S.  Pauli,  etc.  It  did  not  require  any  great  invention  to  add  a  sword- 
bridge  to  this  collection  of  wonderful  bridges.  For  the  human  automata 
that  often  guard  such  bridges  in  the  romances,  cp.  J.  D.  Bruce  "Human 
Automata  in  Classical  Tradition  and  Mediaeval  Romance",  MPh.,  X, 
511ff.  (1913)  and  M.  B.  Ogle,  "The  Perilous  Bridge  and  Human  Auto- 
mata", MLN,  XXXV,  129f.  (1920).  Ogle  cites  from  William  of 
Malmesbury's  Gesta  Begum  Anglorum,  II,  170  (Stubbs's  edition  in 
the  Rolls  Series,  1887)  an  example  of  the  motif  earlier  than  any 
reference  to  it  in  Celtic  tales. 

18  Foerster,  Lancelot,  p.  LXXI,  goes  so  far  as  to  contend  that 
these  classical  myths  were  Chretien's  sole  source  for  the  abduction- 
story.  Even  more  radical  is  G.  Baist,  ibid.,  LXXIIff.,  who  denies  that 
this  story  contains  any  mythical  elements  at  all.  For  example,  he 
quotes  striking  parallels  to  Chretien's  description,  Erec,  11.  1946  ff., 
of  Maheloas's  ideal  kingdom  from  a  description  of  Ireland  in  the  To- 
pographia  Hiherniae  of  Giraldus  Canibrensis.  But  Giraldus  here  is 
probably  merely  ascribing  to  Ireland  characteristics  of  climate,  etc., 
that  are  really  derived  from  Otherworld  conceptions. 


204  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tely  from  some  Eastern  source,  for  this  feature  of  his  description 
of  the  mysterious  realm,  too,  is  not  found  in  Celtic  texts,  save 
those  of  ecclesiastical  origin  —  Christian  visions  of  the  Other- 
world,  like  the  Visio  Tnugdali,  etc.19  —  which  probably,  likewise, 
derived  it  from  the  Orient.  Lastly,  the  bridge  under  the  water 
is  probably  Chretien's  own  invention,  to  provide  for  Gawain's  pas- 
sage to  the  land  of  the  captor.20 

It  may  be  observed  that  this  abduction  story  had  doubtless 
already  gained  entrance  into  Arthurian  literature  in  the  episode 
of  Geoffrey's  Historia  (Book  X,  ch.  13),  where  Mordred,  who 
had  been  left  regent  during  his  uncle's  absence  on  the  continent, 
violated  his  troth  —  had  himself  crowned  and  took  possession  of 
Guinevere.  To  be  sure,  according  to  Geoffrey,  Guinevere  is  a 
partner  in  his  guilt,  but  that  is  probably  an  innovation  of  Geof- 
frey's own.  Now,  there  are  no  valid  grounds  for  believing  that 
Lancelot  was  ever  thought  of  as  the  rescuer  of  the  queen  until 
Chretien  wrote  his  poem,21  and  so  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt 
that  it  is  either  he  or  his  patroness,  Marie  de  Champagne,  that 
first  assigned  this  part  to  the  character.    Indeed,  in  all  likelihood, 


19  Chretien's  immediate  source  for  this  detail  belonged,  I  believe, 
to  this  class  of  literature. 

20  Cp.  Foerster,  Lancelot,  p.  LXIX. 

81  On  the  controversy  as  to  the  priority  of  the  French  original 
of  the  Middle  High  German  Lanzelet,  see  pp.  213ff.,  below.  Golther, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXII3,  2  (1900),  expresses  the  belief  that 
the  Bretons  introduced  Lancelot  into  the  Welsh  saga  of  Melwas  and 
that  Lancelot  already  was  the  hero  of  an  independent  saga  with  them. 
The  first  of  these  opinions,  however,  is  unsupported  by  any  evidence 
and  the  second  is  of  little  importance,  as  far  as  the  sources  of  Chretien's 
poem  are  concerned;  for,  ibid.,  Golther  ascribes  rightly  the  spirit  of 
the  amour  courtois  which  distinguishes  it  to  the  influence  of  Marie 
de  Champagne  and  the  following  features  to  Chretien  himself:  the  cart, 
Gawain's  role,  the  kingdom  of  the  dead  (probably  drawn  from  ancient 
mythology,  since  Chretien  knew  Ovid),  Lancelot's  love  and  Guinevere's 
adultery.  Finally  the  relations  between  Lancelot,  Guinevere  and  Ar- 
thur are  imitated,  even  in  detail,  from  those  of  Tristan,  Iseult  and 
Mark  to  each  other.  If  we  subtract  these  elements  from  Chretien's 
story,  there  is  little  left  for  the  Bretons. 


Lancelot  205 

Arthur  was  the  original  rescuer,22  as  in  the  Vita  Gildae.  At  the 
court  of  Champagne,  however,  permeated  with  the  ideas  of  love 
which  had  been  recently  developed  in  Provence,  it  would  not  do 
for  the  husband  to  play  this  role  —  only  a  lover  could  fill  it  — 
hence  Lancelot  has  taken  the  part  of  the  king.  Moreover,  his 
relations  with  the  woman  whom  he  has  rescued  must  be  regulat- 
ed according  to  the  rules  of  the  amour  courtois,  or  Minnedienst,  as 
it  is  called  by  the  Middle  High  German  poets,  and  so  we  have 
the  preposterous  servitude  of  Lancelot  to  the  queen  which  was 
destined  to  have  such  success  —  especially,  after  it  was  adopted 
into  the  prose  Lancelot.  He  swoons  almost  when  he  sees  a  comb 
with  some  of  his  mistress's  hair  in  it;  when  she  appears  indiffe- 
rent, he  is  ready  to  commit  suicide;  in  the  tourney  he  acts  the 
part  either  of  a  coward  or  of  the  invincible  champion,  in  obe- 
dience to  her  nod.    In  fact,  his  humility  is  grovelling.23 

In  framing  this  story  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  poet 
or  the  countess,  if  it  was  really  she  that  invented  it,  was  consciously 
ordering  it,  so  that  it  might  present  a  direct  contrast  to  the  loves 
of  Tristan  and  Iseult.  The  love-conventions  which  we  associate 
with  the  fictitious  Courts  of  Love  —  Minnedienst,  in  short  — 
were  to  take  the  place  of  the  natural  passion  which  is  the  soul 
of  the  earlier  story.  In  Cliges  Chretien  had  already  composed 
what  was,  in  a  sense,  an  Anti-Tristan,  but  in  his  Lancelot  we 
have  something  to  which  the  title  applies  far  more  exactly.  A 
just  retribution  has  followed  on  this  attempt  to  exalt  convention 
above  nature,  for  the  Lancelot  leaves  us  cold,  whilst  the  Tristan 
poems  embody  one  of  the  immortal  love-stories  of  literature.  In 
fact,  it  was  not  until  the  author  of  the  Mort  Artu  breathed  his 
genius  into  the  new  conception  that  these  later  lovers  secured 
something  of  the  immortality  which  was  assured  for  the  old.  The 
source  of  the  Lancelot-Guinevere  story  was  evident  to  the  author 
of  the  prose-romance,  and  in  composing  his  narrative  of  their 
love-affairs  in  its  last  phase  he  constantly  reverted  to  this  source 
—  the  Tristan  poems  —  and  exploited  them  even  in  detail.- 


24 


33 


Cp.  G.  Paris,  Romania,  XII,  513ff.  (1883). 
8S  Cp.  Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot   du  Lac,  p.  112. 
M  Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  282  f.  and  286. 


206  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

There  was,  however,  another  thirteenth  century  romance  be- 
sides Chretien's  with  Lancelot  as  its  hero.  The  French  original 
has  been  lost,  but  the  poem  survives  in  the  form  of  the  German 
paraphrase  by  Ulrich  von  Zatzikhoven,  called  the  Lanzelet,25  and 
in  order  to  determine  the  true  position  of  Chretien  in  the  develop- 


26  Whilst  arguing,  Romania,  XII,  507,  that  Chretien  was  the 
first  to  make  Lancelot  Guinevere's  lover,  G.  Paris,  Romania,  X,  493ff. 
endeavors  to  prove  that  there  are  French  romances,  or  works  based  on 
French  romances,  that  reflect  an  earlier  form  of  his  story,  when  his 
name  was  not  connected  with  the  queen's,  and  still  others  that  connect 
his  name  with  Guinevere's,  but  not  as  a  lover  —  in  other  words,  that 
there  were  French  romances  concerning  Lancelot  before  Chretien  de 
Troyes.  But  there  are  no  convincing  instances  of  the  former  and  at 
the  end  of  his  discussion  of  two  of  the  romances  in  question  (all  of 
them  later)  —  viz :  the  tale  of  the  stag  with  the  white  foot  in  the 
Dutch  version  of  the  prose  Lancelot  and  Rigomer  he  has  to  acknowl- 
edge himself  that  the  argument  has  little  force.  It  is  really  no  better 
with  his  other  two  instances  —  Durmart  and  the  Crone  (Krone)  of 
Hemrich  von  dem  Tiirlin,  —  for,  if  Durmart  and  not  Lancelot  is  made 
the  rescuer  of  Guinevere  in  the  romance  of  that  name,  it  is  simply 
because  he  is  the  hero  of  that  particular  romance.  In  the  Crone  we 
have  the  episode  of  Lancelot's  rescue  of  Guinevere  from  Meleagant,  but 
there  are  some  other  passages  concerning  him  in  which  Guinevere  does- 
not  appear  —  he  was  accustomed  to  read  concerning  adventures  — 
his  strength,  like  Gawain's  grew  with  the  growth  of  the  day  —  his 
amie  cannot  stand  the  test  of  chastity.  But  the  Crone,  as  is  uni- 
versally recognized,  belongs  to  the  period  when  the  Arthurian  romances 
had  begun  to  decline  and  these  are  simply  old  motifs  attached  now 
to  Lancelot. 

Doubtless,  in  later  life  Paris  would  not  himself  have  attributed 
any  importance  to  these  passages.  It  is  different,  however,  with  the 
other  set  of  romances  —  those  that  connect  Lancelot  und  Guinevere 
but  not  as  lovers.  The  romances  that  he  takes  here  into  consideration 
are  the  Middle  High  German  Lanzelet  by  Ulrich  von  Zatzikhoven  and 
the  abduction  episode  of  the  Crone.  Now,  the  first  of  these,  as  will 
be  seen  below,  presents  a  real  problem,  but  the  Crone  episode  has 
little  force.  The  point  which  Paris  makes  is  that  the  Crone  and 
Malory's  Morte  Darthur,  Book  XIX,  show  in  the  narrative  of  this 
affair  certain  coincidences  which  distinguish  them  from  Chretien's  Lan- 
celot and  which  go  back  to  their  common  source,  a  hypothetical  Che- 
valier du  Chariot  (Chretien's  source,  too).    As  Foerster,  however,  has 


Lancelot  207 

merit  of  the  Lancelot  tradition,   we  shall   have  to  consider   this 
German  poem. 

According  to  its  author's  own  statement,  it  is  a  translation 
of  a  French  book  brought  to  Germany  by  Hugo  de  Morville,  one 
of  the  hostages  who  in  1194  replaced  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion  in 
the  prison  of  Leopold  of  Austria.26  In  view  of  the  methods  of 
most  Middle  High  German  poets  in  handling  French  material, 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  we  have  here  substantially  a  faithful 
rendering  of  the  lost  French  original.  Scholars  are  of  one  mind  as 
to  the  poor  quality  of  Ulrich's  poem,  its  immature  construction, 
etc.,  which,  no  doubt,  reflect  the  same  defects  in  its  source.  It 
is  on  the  question  of  whether  this  source  was  late  or  early  that 


observed  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Lancelot,  p.  L1X,  none  of  these 
matters  are  important  —  for  instance,  the  Crone  and  Malory  make 
Lancelot  ascend  the  cart,  because  he  was  tired,  which,  however,  is  a 
detail  that  might  easily  have  occurred  to  any  number  of  poets  inde- 
pendently. In  general,  one  may  say  that  a  writer  like  Malory  who 
wrote  some  three  hundred  years  after  Chretien  and  nearly  three  hundred 
years  after  the  authors  of  the  prose  romances  can  be  used  only  with 
the  greatest  caution  in  the  study  of  Arthurian  sources.  His  work  is 
based  largely  on  late  modifications  of  the  old  standard  romances,  and, 
as  far  as  has  been  shown,  it  is  not  available  in  a  single  instance  for 
the  study  of  early  Arthurian  sources. 

26  He  was,  also,  one  of  the  slayers  of  Thomas  a  Becket.  I  agree 
with  Golther,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXII2,  1  (1900)  that  the 
Lanzelet  shows  the  influence  of  Chretien's  Yvain  and  Perceval,  and, 
hence,  that  it  was,  doubtless,  written  after  1180.  Ulrich  is  probably 
to  be  identified  with  the  priest  "Uolricus  de  Cecinhoven  plebanus  Lon- 
meissae  |i.  e.  Lommis  in  Thurgau  (Switzerland)]",  who  is  named  in  a 
Latin  document  (dated  March  29,  1214)  from  the  monastery  of  St. 
Peterzell  in  Toggenburg.  The  document  in  question  has  been  printed 
by  J.  Baechtold,  Pfeiffer's  Germania,  XIX,  424  ff.  (1874).  That  a 
churchman  should  concern  himself  with  romances  in  an  age  when  those 
works  were  universally  popular  is  not  strange. 

Hugues  de  Morville  and  his  fellow-hostages  arrived  in  Austria  in 
February,  1194,  and  left  that  country  in  December  of  the  same  year. 
Hence  Lot,  Etude  sur  le  Lancelot  en  prose,  p.  166,  note  3,  says 
that  Ulrich  must  have  written  his  Lanzelet  between  these  dates;  but 
Hugues  may  have  made  a  present  of  the  book  to  Ulrich,  or  the  latter 
may  have  copied  it  then  and  executed  his  paraphrase  later. 


208  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  doctors  disagree.  Let  us  glance  hastily,  however,  at  the  con- 
tents of  the  romance: 

Lancelot  is  the  son  of  King  Pant  of  Gennewis  and  his  wife 
Clarine.  By  a  revolt  of  his  people  Pant  was  driven  from  his 
kingdom  with  his  wife  and  child.  He  died  during  the  flight, 
and  a  water-fairy  stole  his  infant  boy  from  the  mother  and  carried 
him  away  to  Maidenland  (the  Celtic  Otherworld).  He  is  brought 
up  there  ignorant  of  his  name  and  rank  and  of  knightly  accomplish- 
ments. The  fairy,  however,  finally  lets  him  go  forth  to  try  his 
valor.  She  will  not  tell  him,  however,  of  his  name  and  parentage 
until  he  has  overcome  the  strongest  knight  in  the  world,  Iweret 
of  Beforet.27  Though  provided  with  the  best  equipment,  when  he 
starts  out,  he  does  not  know  how  to  use  it,  until  in  the  course  of 
time  he  meets  a  knight,  Johfrit  de  Liez,  who  gives  him  proper 
instruction  in  these  matters. 

He  next  comes  with  two  knights  to  the  castle  of  a  certain 
Galagandreiz,  who  has  condemned  his  daughter  to  perpetual  vir- 
ginity. She  manages,  however,  to  offer  her  love  to  each  of  the  three 
knights.  Lancelot  accepts,  slays  the  father,  and  weds  the  girl. 
Wandering  forth  on  adventure,  he  is  attacked  at  a  castle  named 
Limors  and  would  have  been  killed,  but  for  the  intervention  of 
Ade,  niece  of  the  lord  of  the  castle.  He  is  thrown  into  prison,  but 
escapes  after  fighting  successively  with  a  giant,  two  lions,  and 
the  lord  of  the  castle.  He  now  becomes  the  lover  of  Ade.  Whether 
he  marries  her  is  not  said,  but,  at  any  rate,  his  wife,  the  daughter 
of  Galagandreiz,  drops  out  of  the  story. 

Lancelot  is  now  famous  and  Arthur  sends  Gawain  to  bring 
him  to  court.  They  meet  (not  knowing  each  other's  identity), 
fight  an  undecided  combat,  which  is  terminated  by  news  of  an 
impending  tournament  between  King  Lot  and  Gurnemanz.  Lance- 


27  This  witholding  of  the  hero's  name,  which  is  so  common  a 
motif  in  the  romances,  is  connected  ultimately,  no  doubt,  with  the 
widespread  superstition  among  primitive  peoples  to  the  effect  that  to 
disclose  one's  name  puts  one  in  the  power  of  another.  Cp.  on  the 
subject  Edward  Clodd's  interesting  book,  Magic  in  Names  and  in 
Other  Things  (London,  1920). 


Lancelot  209 

lot  betakes  himself  thither,  fights  three  days,  and  each  day  in 
armor  of  a  different  color,  overthrows  many  knights  including 
Lot,  whom  he  sets  free  out  of  friendship  for  Gawain,  and  still 
incognito,  rides  away  to  Ade  and  her  brother. 

They  come  to  a  castle,  Schatel  le  Mort  (Castle  of  Death),  the 
master  of  which  is  Mabuz,  a  magician  —  the  son  of  the  fairy  who 
brought  Lancelot  up.  Lancelot  rides  to  the  castle,  which  has  this 
property  that  whoever  crosses  its  drawbridge  at  once  loses  all  cou- 
rage. He  falls  under  the  spell  and  is  made  prisoner.  His  amiey 
Ade,  rides  off  in  dismay  with  her  brother  and  disappears  from 
the  story.  The  territory  of  Mabuz  is  often  raided  by  his  neighbor, 
Iweret  of  Beforet.  The  magician  is,  himself,  a  coward,  but  makes 
Lancelot  his  champion  —  has  him  carried  outside  the  castle-walls, 
so  that  he  may  again  be  free  from  the  spell.  Lancelot  rides  to 
a  fountain  beside  which  hangs  a  brazen  cymbal  on  which  he  must 
strike  three  times  with  a  hammer  to  summon  his  foe.  In  the 
meanwhile,  Iblis,  daughter  of  Iweret,  has  a  dream  of  an  unknown 
knight.  She  finds  this  dream  realized  in  Lancelot  and  she  wishes 
him  to  fly  with  her,  but  he  first  slays  the  father  and  then  marries 
the  girl,  becoming  master  of  Beforet. 

At  this  point  a  messenger  from  Lancelot's  fairy  foster-mother 
informs  him  of  his  name  and  parentage,  and  it  turns  out  that  she 
stole  him  in  the  original  instance  to  raise  up  a  deliverer  for  her 
son,  Mabuz. 

Lancelot  now  decides  to  seek  Gawain.  On  his  way  he  meets 
a  squire,  who  informs  him  that  King  Valerin  (Falerin)  has  ap- 
peared at  Arthur's  court  and  laid  claim  to  Guinevere,  on  the 
ground  that  she  had  been  betrothed  to  him,  previous  to  her  mar- 
riage with  Arthur.  If  no  champion  offers,  he  will  carry  off  the 
queen.   Lancelot  undertakes  the  combat  and  defeats  Valerin. 

Following  this,  Lancelot  has  another  adventure  at  a  castle 
named  Pluris  —  defeats  in  succession  one  hundred  knights,  and, 
forgetful  of  Iblis,  marries  the  queen  of  the  castle.  During  his 
absence  from  court  Iblis  successfully  stands  the  chastity  test  (by 
means  of  a  mantle).  Gawain,  Karyet  (Gaheriet)  Erec  and  Tristan 
go  in  search  of  Lancelot  and  by  a  ruse  succeed  in  delivering  him 


210  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

from  the  castle  of  Pluris,  whose  queen,  like  Lancelot's  previous 
wives,  now  vanishes  from  the  story. 

But  on  their  way  back  to  court  the  knights  hear  that  Valerin 
has  carried  off  Guinevere  and  imprisoned  her  in  a  castle  sur- 
rounded by  serpents  —  in  a  magic  slubber,  as  it  turns  out.  At 
Tristan's  suggestion  they  seek  the  aid  of  the  enchanter,  Malduc, 
in  liberating  the  queen.  Erec  and  Gawain,  however,  have  to  be 
given  up  to  Malduc,  who  has  a  grudge  against  them,  before  he 
will  render  assistance.  The  two  knights  themselves  consent  to  this 
and  Malduc,  by  his  magical  powers,  rescues  the  queen.28  Lancelot 
and  a  giant  now  free  Erec  and  Gawain  from  Malduc  and  they 
all  return  to  Arthur's  court.  Here  Iblis  tells  him  of  a  knight 
who  had  recently  been  confronted  with  the  adventure  of  the  fier 
baiser  —  he  is  solicited  for  a  kiss  by  a  dragon,  who  speaks  with 
a  human  voice.  Lancelot  undertakes  the  adventure  and  fhe  seem- 
ing dragon  is  transformed  into  a  woman.  She  has  been  put  under  a 
spell,  because  she  had  transgressed  the  laws  of  Minne  —  that  is 
the  conventions  of  the  amour  courtois. 

In  conclusion,  Lancelot  wins  back  his  father's  kingdom  and 
retires  with  Iblis  to  Beforet,  where  they  entertain  Arthur  and 
his  consort.  The  pair  are  blessed  with  four  children.  They  live 
to  old  age  and  die  on  the  same  day. 

Now,  there  are  different  views  held  in  regard  to  the  relations 
of  Chretien's  Lancelot  and  Ulrich's  original.  On  the  one  hand, 
we  have  what  to  the  present  writer  seems  the  true  view  —  namely, 
that  this  latter  romance  was  a  biographical  romance  of  the  weakest 
sort,  comparatively  late  and  built  up  in  a  considerable  measure 
on  motifs  derived  from  Chretien's  poems.29  On  the  other  hand, 
Gaston  Paris  and  others  have  regarded  Ulrich's  original  as  derived 


28  Miss  Weston  points  out,  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot  du  Lac, 
pp.  15ff.  that,  contrary  to  the  statement  of  both  G.  Paris  and  Foerster, 
Lancelot  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  rescue,  his  name  even  not  being- 
mentioned. 

29  Such  is  the  view  defended  by  Foeuter,  Lancelot,  pp.  XLVff., 
and  by  Golther  in  his  review  of  Foerster's  edition  of  the  Lancelot, 
Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXII2,  Iff.  (1900).  Golther  calls  the  Lan- 
zelet  "geradezu  eine  Erg&nzung  der  Karre"  (i.  e.  of  Chretien's  Lanclot). 


Lancelot  211 

from  the  same  source  as  Chretien's  Lancelot  —  that  is,  from  a 
biographical  romance  concerning  Lancelot  —  only  the  great  French 
scholar  thought  that  Ulrich's  original  was  more  primitive  than 
Chretien  and  reflected  better  their  common  source.30 

In  an  effort  to  answer  the  question  at  issue,  let  us  examine  now 
more  closely  some  of  the  motifs  of  Ulrich's  Lanzelet  which  are 
found  also  in  Chretien's  poems  or  other  early  romances. 

1.  The  trait  of  Lancelot's  being  brought  up  in  the  wilder- 
ness, ignorant  of  his  name,  parentage  and  all  knightly  accom- 
plishments. For  the  source  of  this  feature  of  the  Lanzelet  there 
is  no  need  of  seeking  any  further  than  the  story  of  Perceval's 
youth  as  related  in  Chretien's  poem  on  that  hero.  So,  too,  with 
the  instruction  which  Johfrit  de  Liez  gives  Lancelot. 

2.  The  Three  Days'  Tournament  motif.  We  have  a  similar 
episode  in  Chretien's  Cliges,  11.  4575ff.,  and  certain  scholars31 
contend  that  the  motif  in  the  Lanzelet  is  derived  from  that  source. 
Chretien,  however,  makes  Cliges  fight  four  days  (each  day  in  armour 
of  a  different  colour),  which  is  an  expansion  of  the  motif  as  we 
find  it  not  only  in  the  German  poem,  but  in  a  great  number  of 


30 


Cp.  Romania,  X,  472  (1881).  Miss  Weston's  view,  Legend 
of  Sir  Lancelot  du  Lac,  pp.  17ff.,  of  the  matter  is  akin  to  that  of 
G.  Paris  —  except  that  she  regards  Ulrich's  original  as  drawn  not 
from  a  biographical  romance,  but  from  a  number  of  floating  lays  con- 
cerning Lancelot.  Most  of  the  episodes,  however,  which  Miss  Weston 
supposes  to  be  based  on  hypothetical  "floating  lays"  have  parallels 
elsewhere,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  Lancelot  ever  had 
any  monopoly  of  these  motifs  in  oral  tradition  —  so  her  theory  is, 
in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  untenable  —  and,  similarly,  that 
of  G.  Paris,  in  so  far  as  it  assumes  a  basis  of  Lancelot  lays  for  his 
hypothetical  common  source  of  Chretien  and  Ulrich's  original. 

Similar  to  Miss  Weston's  theory  is  A.  C.  L.  Brown's  (in  his  "The 
Grail  and  the  English  Sir  Perceval",  MPh.  XVI,  559  ff.  (1919),  XVII, 
36 Iff.  (1919).  He  supports  this  theory  by  an  endeavor  to  prove 
that  Sir  Perceval  and  the  Lanzelet  draw  upon  a  "body  of  tradition" 
older  than  Chretien  (p.  563).  Brown's  method  in  these  discussions, 
however,  is  open  to  the  same  criticism  that  I  have  expressed  else- 
where. 

81  Foerster  and  Golther. 


212  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

folktales.  Accordingly,  it  has  been  urged,32  on  the  other  side,  that 
the  passage  in  Ulrich  came  from  oral  tradition  and  not  from  Cliges. 
There  remains,  however,  the  possibility  that  Chretien's  example 
may  have  led  the  author  of  Ulrich's  original  to  employ  the  motif, 
although  in  a  form  nearer  to  that  which  it  assumes  in  the  folk- 
tales. But  it  seems  even  more  likely  that  the  author  of  this  ori- 
ginal was  imitating  here  the  romance  of  Ipomedon,  which  contains 
the  motif  in  the  same  form  as  Ulrich's  poem.33  As  we  have  seen, 
Hugh  of  Morville  brought  the  French  book  to  Austria  in  1194, 
but  it  may  have  been  then  quite  new  —  possibly  the  latest  sen- 
sation.34 If  it  was  composed  after  1190,  it  was  certainly  later 
than  Ipomedon,  for  we  know  that  this  romance  was  written  before 
that  date. 

3.  Lancelot's  challenging  of  Iweret  by  striking  on  the  brazen 
cymbal  at  the  fountain  may  very  well  have  been  suggested  by  the 
episode  of  Yvain  and  the  fountain  in  Chretien's  Yvain  (11.  800 ff.). 

4.  The  folk-tale  motif  of  the  fier  baiser  —  a  knight,  by  a  kiss, 
undoes  the  spell  which  has  transformed  a  beautiful  woman  into 
a  serpent  —  here  attached  to  Lancelot,  is  generally  attached  to 
Gawain's  son  in  the  Arthurian  romances,  and  seems  as  distinctive 
of  that  character  as  the  features  of  Perceval's  youth,  enumerated 
above,  are  of  Perceval.   The  earliest  of  the  romances  dealing  with 


32 


By  Miss  Weston  in  her  The  Three  Days'  Tournament  (Lon- 
don, 1902).  A  much  better  discussion  of  the  motif  in  its  manifold 
occurrences  will  be  found  in  C.  H.  Carter's  article  on  Ipomedon,  Haver- 
ford  Essays,  pp.  248ff.  (Haverford,  Pa.,  1909). 

33  Miss  Weston,  op.  cit.,  pp.  3ff.,  notes  this  herself. 

In  her  treatise,  named  above,  Miss  Weston  has  entered  into  a 
long  argument  —  to  the  present  writer  unconvincing  —  that  this 
three  tournament  motif  belonged  to  Lancelot  in  oral  tradition.  Neither 
she,  however,  nor  Carter  have  taken  into  account  the  fact  that  Ulrich's 
original  may  very  well  have  been  later  in  date  than  Ipomedon  and, 
consequently,  may  have  drawn  from  it.  There  is  no  way  of  settling 
the  question  of  whence  the  author  of  Ulrich's  original  derived  this  in- 
cident, but,  in  any  event,  there  is,  pace  Miss  Weston,  no  reason  for 
believing  that  its  connection  with  Lancelot  belonged  to  oral  tradition. 

84  Cp.  Foerster's  Lancelot,  p.  XLVI. 


Lancelot  213 

Gawain's  son,  viz.  Li  Biaus  Descouneus,  dates  from  the  latter  part 
of  the  twelfth  century.35 

5.  The  episode  of  Guinevere's  abduction,  which  constitutes 
the  main  crux  of  the  whole  controversy.  Is  Ulrich's  account  of  this 
affair  more  primitive  than  Chretien's?  Miss  Weston  thinks  that 
it  is.36  The  description  of  Guinevere's  prison,  she  remarks,  her 
magic  slumber  in  a  fair  dwelling,  surrounded  by  a  dense  thicket 
infested  with  serpents,  is  the  sleeping  beauty  story  in  its  oldest 
Otherworld  form.  The  identification  with  the  sleeping  beauty 
motif  is  admissible;  but  who  can  say  that  this  motif  was  not  im- 
ported into  the  story  of  Guinevere's  abduction  by  the  author  of 
the  lost  French  romance  which  Ulrich  was  following?  In  any  case, 
the  element  in  question  is  no  more  Celtic  in  character  than  Chre- 
tien's description  of  Guinevere's  captivity,  for  in  the  numerous 
descriptions  of  the  Celtic  Otherworld  there  is  none  that  represents 
it  in  this  light. 

That  Ulrich's  original  was  independent  of  Chretien's  Lancelot 
seems  at  first  blush  manifest,  since  here  Lancelot  is  not  the  lover 
of  Guinevere.  He  has  four  love  affairs  in  the  course  of  the  poem 
—  three  of  them  ending  in  marriage  —  but  none  of  them  are  with 
her.  If  he  had  known  Chretien's  Lancelot,  would  the  author  of 
the  poem  have  ventured  to  discard  the  conception  of  the  love-affair 
which  is  embodied  in  that  work?  Considering  the  renown  to  which 
this  love-affair  has  since  attained,  one  is  inclined  to  answer  "no". 


85  According  to  Miss  G.  P.  Williams,  —  see  her  edition  (Oxford, 
1915)  of  the  romance,  p.  XXXVIII  —  it  was  written  between  1185  and 
1190.  The  fier  baiser  episode  will  be  found,  11.  3114ff.,  in  Miss 
Williams's  edition.  For  an  analysis  of  the  episode  in  the  various  ro- 
mances of  the  cycle,  cp.  W.  H.  Schofield,  Studies  on  the  Libeaus 
Desconus,  pp.  47  ff.,  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes  in  Philology  and 
Literature,  no.  4  (Boston,  1895).  For  the  fier  baiser  motif  in  the 
literature  of  folktales,  in  general,  cp.  Bolte  and  Polivka,  II,  271  ff. 
In  "La  legende  de  la  fille  d'Hippocrate",  Bibliotheque  de  V&cole  des 
Chartes,  vol.  79,  pp.  45  ff.  (1918),  G.  Huet  defends  the  antiquity  of 
the  localization  of  this  motif  on  the  island  of  Cos  in  the  Aegean  Sea 
—  the  birth-place  of  the  great  physician,  Hippocrates  —  which  is 
found  in  The  Travels  of  Sir  John  Mandeville,  ch.  4. 

**  Cp.  her  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot  du  Lac,  p.  19. 


214  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

But  it  is  to  be  remembered  tbat  for  Chretien's  contemporaries  this 
feature  of  Guinevere's  story  was  a  new  thing  —  a  quite  recent 
innovation  —  and  did  not  possess  the  authority  that  it  now  pos- 
sesses. So,  if  a  writer  wished  to  introduce  into  a  romance  about 
Lancelot  the  abduction  incident,  in  which  the  queen  had  long  fi- 
gured, he  would  not  feel  it  necessary,  as  a  modern  poet,  doubtless, 
would,  to  connect  the  episode  with  Lancelot  as  the  lover  and  rescuer. 
Above  all,  however,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  narratives  of  their 
predecessors  had  no  sanctity  for  the  mediaeval  romancers.  If  the 
author  of  the  Queste  del  Saint  Graal  could  displace  Perceval  by 
Galahad  as  the  Grail  hero  and  still  retain  the  former  as  a  pro- 
minent actor  in  the  story,  there  is,  surely,  no  reason  why  the  author 
of  the  French  original  of  the  Lanzelet  should  not  have  displaced 
Guinevere  by  Iblis  (the  most  prominent  of  Lancelot's  lady-loves 
in  the  Lanzelet),  say,  and  still  have  kept  the  hero  as  the  queen's 
rescuer,  although  he  is  no  longer  her  lover.  An  adequate  motive 
for  the  change  would  be  that  the  romances  regularly  end  with 
the  marriage  of  the  hero  and  the  heroine,  yet  this,  of  course,  would 
have  been  impossible,  if  Arthur's  consort  had  continued  to  be 
Lancelot's  lady-love.37  Thus,  the  French  poet  whom  Ulrich  trans- 
lated may,  after  all,  have  been  attracted  to  Lancelot  by  Chretien's 
poem,  although  he  chose  to  ascribe  to  him  a  new  set  of  adventures, 
gathered,  for  the  most  part,  here  and  there,  from  traditions  or 
contemporary  romances  relating  to  other  heroes.  In  any  event, 
there  is  only  one  feature  of  Lancelot's  story,  as  we  find  it  in  the 
various  Arthurian  romances,  of  which  we  can  assert  that  it  was 


87  The  considerations  here  advanced  meet  sufficiently,  I  believe, 
Brown's  criticism,  MPh.  XVII,  363.  Important  in  this  connection, 
also,  are  the  instances  of  violent  departure  from  Arthurian  tradition 
which  I  have  cited  elsewhere  in  the  present  work.  Furthermore, 
despite  Brown's  objection,  loc.  cit.,  I  cannot  regard  the  parallel  of 
Escanor,  for  example,  as  without  value.  The  author  of  this  poem  uses 
as  one  of  his  sources  the  prose  Lancelot,  in  which  the  great  theme 
is  the  hero's  passion  for  the  queen,  yet  he  not  only  ignores  that  famous 
love-story,  though  retaining  Lancelot  as  a  minor  character  in  his  poem, 
but  says  explicitly,  1.  7344,  that  Guinevere  loved  Gawain  most  of 
all  men,  except  her  husband. 


Lancelot  215 

unquestionably  connected  with  him  in  oral  tradition  —  namely, 
the  one  according  to  which  he  was  stolen  when  a  child  and  brought 
up  by  a  water-fairy.  This  account  is  first  found  in  an  explicit 
form  in  Ulrich's  Lanzelet,  but  the  name  given  the  character  in 
Chretien's  poems  —  Lancelot  del  Lac  —  presupposes  this  feature. 
From  the  French  source  of  the  Lanzelet  it  passed  into  the  great 
Lancelot  in  prose,38  and  thence  into  general  tradition. 

It  was  through  this  prose  Lancelot  —  composed  in  its  earliest 
form,  it  would  seem,  near  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century  —  that 
the  fame  of  Lancelot  was  spread  far  and  wide.  Although  so  im- 
portant in  the  development  of  the  history  of  the  character,  Chre- 
tien's poem  does  not  seem  to  have  been  much  read,  if  we  are  to 
judge  by  the  paucity  of  allusions  to  it  in  mediaeval  literature.39 
It  was  otherwise,  however,  with  the  prose-romance,  which,  as  we 
shall  see,  was  destined  to  exercise  a  profound  influence  on  the  prose- 
fiction  of  Europe.  To  separate  this  romance,  as  it  was  originally 
written,  from  the  additions  and  interpolations  with  which  it  has 
been  overloaded  in  our  relatively  late  cyclic  MSS.  is  a  difficult 
task.40  Nevertheless,  it  is  virtually  certain  that  even  in  its  un- 
encumbered form  the  prose  work  was  based,  to  a  considerable  ex- 


38  Cp.  Sommer,  III,  14.  Foerster,  Lancelot,  p.  XXXIX,  ascribes 
to  Lancelot,  also,  in  popular  tradition  the  role  of  Guinevere's  rescuer, 
but  as  Miss  Weston,  pp.  15  f.,  has  shown,  this  is  due  to  an  erroneous 
interpretation  of  Ulrich's  poem.  The  German  scholar  has  remarked, 
moreover,  that  the  temporary  release  of  Lancelot  from  captivity,  in 
order  that  he  may  attend  a  tourney,  occurring  in  both  Chretien  and 
Ulrich,  was  probably  in  the  oral  tradition;  but  one  cannot  shut  out 
the  suspicion  that  Ulrich's  original  was  here  borrowing  from  Chretien. 

Miss  L.  A.  Paton,  Studies  in  the  Fairy  Mythology  of  Arthurian 
Romance,  pp.  188f.  (Boston,  1903)  suggested  that  the  lake-fairy  was, 
doubtless,  originally  not  Lancelot's  foster-mother,  but  his  amie.  A.  C.  L. 
Brown,  MPh.  XVII,  361  ff.,  adopts  this  hypothesis,  which  figures  lar- 
gely in  his  discussion  of  the  Lanzelet.  It  has,  however,  no  support 
whatever  in  the  extant  texts  and,  in  my  own  opinion,  should  be  rejected. 

5,9  Cp.  Foerster,  Lancelot,  pp.  XLVIHff. 

The  present  writer  has  attempted  this  in  his  study,  "The 
Composition  of  the  Old  French  prose  Lancelot".  Romanic  Review, 
vols.  IX,  (1918)  and  X,  (1919V 


216  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tent,  on  earlier  romances  in  verse41  —  most  of  them  lost  —  and 
there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  it  drew  at  all  from  oral  tra- 
dition. We  shall  return,  however,  to  the  prose  Lancelot  in  a  later 
chapter  of  the  present  treatise. 


41 


Miss  Weston's  assumption  (cp.  her  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot 
du  Lac,  pp.  89  ff.)  that  her  hypothetical  body  of  oral  tradition  con- 
cerning Lancelot  affected  independently  the  Arthurian  romances  like 
the  prose  Merlin  and  Tristan  is  baseless.  The  romances,  just  named, 
know  nothing  about  this  hero,  except  what  they  derive  from  the  prose 
Lancelot.  Equally  groundless  is  the  notion,  first  advanced  in  her  book 
on  The  Legend  of  Sir  Gawain  (London,  1897)  and  repeated  here, 
that  Gawain  was  originally  Guinevere's  lover  in  Celtic  tradition  and 
that  features  of  his  story  have  descended  to  Lancelot.  In  the  scores  of 
Arthurian  texts  there  is  not  a  trace  of  any  such  relation  between 
Gawain  and  Guinevere. 


PART  n. 

THE  HOLY  GRAIL. 


Chapter  I. 

Chretien,  Robert  de  Boron,  and  the  Theory 
of  Christian  Origin. 

It  would  materially  facilitate  the  investigation  of  the  origin 
of  the  legend  of  the  Grail,  if  we  could  fix  indisputably  the  relative 
dates  of  the  various  mediaeval  romances  that  deal  with  the  theme. 
Unfortunately  here,  as  so  often  in  Arthurian  matters,  the  data 
are  meagre,  and  even  those  who  are  most  convinced  of  the  correct- 
ness of  any  particular  theory  as  to  the  chronological  order  of  these 
works  must  acknowledge  that  an  uncertainty  which  cannot  be 
wholly  dispelled  must  still  hang  over  their  conclusions.  The  two 
earliest  romances  that  treat  of  the  Grail  are  the  Conte  del  Graal 
of  Chretien  de  Troyes  and  the  Joseph  of  Robert  de  Boron.  Let  us 
look  at  the  evidence  regarding  the  date  of  composition  in  each 
case.  First,  as  regards  the  Conte  del  Graal,  as  Chretien  named 
it,  or  the  Perceval,  as,  following  the  example  of  modern  scholars, 
it  will  be  more  convenient  for  us  to  call  it.  At  the  beginning  of 
his  poem  Chretien  eulogizes  Count  Philip  of  Flanders,  at  whose 
command  ht  was  composing  the  romance  —  his  source  being  a 
book  given  him  for  the  purpose  by  this  same  Count  Philip.1   The 


1  The  eulogy  takes  the  form  of  an  argument  to  prove  that  his 
patron,  Philip,  is  superior  to  Alexander  the  Great.  Despite  this  ar- 
tificial form,  his  praise  of  Philip's  justice,  liberality,  and  charity  pro- 
duces an  impression  of  greater  sincerity  than  is  usual  in  such  cases. 
But,  after  all,  the  impression  is  probably  due  merely  to  Chretien's  art, 
for  these  encomiums  are  hardly  borne  out  by  the  historical  evi- 
dences as  to  Philip's  life.  With  such  a  patron  the  poet  continues  in 
the  oft-quoted  lines  (62  ff .) : 

Done  avra  bien  sauve  sa  peine 
Crestiens  qui  antant  et  peine 
A  rimoier  le  meillor  conte, 


220  The  Holy  Grail 

nobleman  in  question  was  Philip  of  Alsace,  who  was  born  about 
1143  and  who  succeeded  his  father  as  Count  of  Flanders  in  1168. 
In  1190  he  went  to  the  Holy  Land  and  died  there  the  following 
year.  So  the  only  positive  limits  within  which  Chretien  may  be 
said  to  have  written  his  poem  are  1168 — 1190,  i.e.  the  limits 
of  the  rule  of  Philip  of  Alsace  before  his  departure  for  Palestine, 
which  would  surely  have  been  mentioned  by  Chretien,  had  he  al- 
ready gone.  At  the  same  time  there  are  certain  considerations 
which  make  the  earlier  part  of  this  period  more  probable  than  the 
latter.  In  the  first  place,  the  romance  which,  according  to  general 
agreement,  must  have  immediately  preceded  the  Perceval  in  order 
of  composition,  i.e.  the  Yvain,  was  written,  as  seems  manifest  from 
an  allusion  in  it,  not  later  than  1174.  Now,  Perceval  was  the  only 
one  of  Chretien's  works  of  later  date  than  this.  Is  it  likely  that 
this  romance  was  separated  from  the  Yvain  by  any  wide  interval 
of  years,  so  that  its  composition  would  fall,  say  in  the  eighties 
of  the  twelfth  century?  It  is  possible,  of  course,  but  his  previous 
works,  Erec,  Cliges,  Lancelot,  Yvain,  had  followed  each  other  in 
fairly  close  succession;  consequently,  the  weight  of  probability , 
on  the  whole,  would  seem  to  lie  on  the  other  side.  In  any  event, 
Perceval  was  the  last  poem  from  Chretien's  pen,  for  one  of  his 
continuators,  Gerbert,  tells  us  that  he  died  whilst  he  was  coni'- 
posing  it,  and  this  accounts,  of  course,  for  his  leaving  it  a  fragment, 
tempting  others  to  continuations. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  evidence  as  to  Robert  de  Boron's 
Joseph.  The  question  is  somewhat  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
Robert's  poem  is  preserved  to  us  in  what  some  scholars  regard, 
though  wrongly,  I  believe,  as  only  a  second  redaction.  The  epi- 
logue at  the  end  of  the  Joseph  in  our  unique  MS.  was  plainly  a 
late  addition  to  the  original  poem,  and,  according  to  these  scho- 


Par  le  comandement  le  conte, 
Qui  soit  contez  an  cort  real; 
Ce  est  li  contes  del  graal, 
Don  li  cuens  li  bailie  le  livre, 
S'orroiz  comant  il  s'an  delivre. 

Then  begins  the  story  of  Perceval. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  221 

lars,  in  adding  the  epilogue  the  author  made  changes  in  the  poem, 
itself.  In  this  epilogue  the  poet  remarks  that  it  would  be  desirable 
to  know  the  subsequent  adventures  of  the  principal  characters  in 
his  poem  and  declares  his  intention  of  treating  these  subjects, 
if  he  can  ever  discover  a  book  which  might  tell  of  them.  But  no 
one,  he  says,  can  assemble  such  a  narrative  who  has  not  heard 
told  the  most  high  history  of  the  Holy  Grail  (i.e.  the  Joseph) 
which  is  without  doubt  entirely  true.  Then,  in  this  connection 
he  makes  the  following  statement,  which  bears  on  the  question 
of  date:  "At  the  time  that  I  treated  it  (i.e.  the  story  of  the  Grail) 
in  peace,  (when)  with  my  lord,  Gautier,  who  was  of  Mont-Belyal, 
the  great  history  of  the  Holy  Grail  had  never  been  treated  by  any 
man  that  was  mortal."  Now,  this  Gautier  of  Montbeliard  went 
to  Palestine  in  1199,  became  Constable  of  Jerusalem  there,  then 
Regent  of  Cyprus,  and  died  in  1212.  Inasmuch  as  Gautier's 
elder  brother  (Richard  of  Montbeliard)  died  so  late  as  1237,  it 
it  not  likely  that  Gautier  himself  was  born  before  1150,  or  more 
probably  1160.2  On  the  other  hand,  Gautier's  father,  Amadeus, 
died  in  1183  and  the  same  year  Gautier  became  independent  for 
the  first  time  on  receiving  the  county  of  Montfaucon.  The  pro- 
babilities are  that  he  would  hardly  have  become  the  patron  of 
a  poet  that  year.  In  any  event,  he  must  have  been  a  grown  man, 
so  that  Robert's  connection  with  him  could  not  have  begun  before 
about  1180. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  evidence  as  to  the  upward  limit  for 
the  date  of  Robert  de  Boron's  romance  does  not  enable  us  to  fix 
upon  a  precise  year.  But  the  range  is  not  great;  it  was  in  the 
early  eighties  of  the  twelfth  century.  As  regards  the  downward 
limit,  we  are  better  off.  Robert  states  that  he  was  with  Gautier 
when  he  first  composed  his  poem.  Now,  Gautier  took  his  departure 
for  Italy  in  1199  and  thence  for  Palestine  in  1201,  so  that  the 
composition  of  the  Joseph  in  its  original  form,  it  is  virtually  cer- 
tain, must  have  antedated  1199.  With  regard  to  the  existing 
form,  which,  of  course,  may  have  undergone  changes,  as  compared 

2  For  these  dates  cp.,  respectively,  Birch-Hirschfeld,  p.  239,  and 
G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin,  p.  1.8,  note  1 


222  The  Holy  Grail 

with  the  original  form,  this  would  seem  at  first  sight  to  date 

from  a  period  subsequent  to  Gautier's  death,  i.e.  subsequent  to 

1212,  since  the  author  speaks  here  of  Gautier  as  one  "who  was 

of  Montbeliard."  3   But  I  agree  with  Professor  Heinzel  that  these 


3  This  was  Gaston  Paris's  interpretation,  Huth-Merliny  vol.  I, 
p.  IX,  note  1.  On  the  other  hand,  Heinzel,  pp.  113f.,  suggests  that 
we  have  the  past,  estoit  (1.  3491,  Qui  de  Mont-Belyal  estoit), 
because  retreis  (1.  3489,  A  ce  tens  que  je  la  retreis  —  i.  e.  "at 
the  time  that  I  related  the  history  of  the  Grail")  was  in  the  past. 
I  believe  that  this  is  the  correct  explanation,  and  that  we  have  here 
simply  a  case  of  grammatical  subordination.  So,  too,  Brugger,  Zs. 
f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX1,  65,  note  13.  That  this  form  of  ex- 
pression might  give  rise  to  misunderstandings  would,  of  course,  never 
occur  to  so  careless  a  writer  as  Robert  de  Boron.  And,  after  all, 
when  I  say:  "At  the  time  that  I  wrote  my  book  in  1910,  I  was 
closely  associated  with  John  Johnson,  who  was  the  professor  of  history 
in  the  University  of  Chicago,"  I  do  not  imply  that  Professor  Johnson 
is  no  longer  professor  in  the  University  of  Chicago  or  that  he  is  now 
dead.  Moreover,  if  G.  Paris's  interpretation  is  the  true  one,  Robert, 
after  an  interval  of  at  least  thirteen  years  (1199 — 1212)  —  in  all 
probability,  more  —  took  up  his  work  to  continue  it  and  apparently 
on  a  very  large  scale  (although  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  he 
ever  carried  out  the  full  plan).  But  this  seems  incredible.  More  likely 
it  would  be  an  interval  of  not  half  that  duration.  On  the  other  hand, 
I  see  no  reason  for  believing  with  Heinzel  that  the  epilogue  Jor  the 
hypothetical  redaction  of  the  original  Joseph)  was  composed  after  1201. 
Heinzel  is  evidently  influenced  by  his  identification  of  Don  Graal  la 
plus  grant  estoire  (1.  3487)  with  the  so  called  Grand  St.  Graal 
(Est o ire  del  saint  Graal)  of  the  Walter  Map  cycle,  which,  owing 
to  an  erroneous  interpretation  of  the  well-known  passage  in  the  Chro- 
nicle of  Helinandus,  he  placed  some  years  before  1204. 

Birch-Hirschfeld,  p.  239,  interpreted  1.  3491  as  referring  to  the 
time  when  Gautier  was  merely  of  Montbeliard  and  before  he  became 
Count  of  Montfaucon  in  1183.  But  this  is  not  satisfactory,  since  he 
was  called  Gautier  de  Montbeliard  long  after  he  became  Count  of  Mont- 
faucon.    See  on  the  subject  Foerster,   Worterbuch,  p.  173.* 

G.  Paris,  Melanges,  p.  45,  speaks  of  Robert  as  standing  in  re- 
lations, not  only  of  friendship  with  Gautier,  but  of  "collaboration", 
whilst  F.  Lot  says,  Bibliotheque  de  I'Ecole  des  Chartes,  LXX,  565, 
note  4  (1909),  "Je  n'accorde,  an  surplus,  aucune  creance  a  l'assertion 
de  Robert  qui  n'invoque  l'autorite  de  Gautier  de  Montbeliard  <^ue  parce 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  223 

words  do  not  necessarily  imply  that  Gautier  was  dead.  The  poet 
used  the  past  tense  simply  because  he  was  speaking  of  a  connection 
which  at  the  time  that  he  composed  his  epilogue  belonged  to  the 
past. 

To  sum  up,  then,  Chretien's  Perceval  was  written  between  1174 
and  1190  and  Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph  between  1180,  say,  and 
1199.  For  Chretien,  the  years  from  1174  to  1180,  as  we  have  seen> 
seem  more  probable,  though  not  certain.  As  regards  Robert  de 
Boron,  there  is  no  evidence  that  would  enable  us  to  draw  the  limits 
more  narrowly. 

I  will  now  give  an  analysis  of  each  of  these  poems  —  the 
earliest  works  concerning  the  Holy  Grail,  so  that  we  may  have 
the  materials  for  determining  their  relations,  as  far  as  possible, 
and  for  settling  the  question  of  priority  which  the  external  data 
are  insufficient  to  settle. 

And  first  for  Chretien's  Perceval*  After  the  dedicatory  pro- 
logue which  I  have  already  indicated,  the  narrative  begins: 

It  was  in  the  spring  when  the  son  (Perceval,  as  he  is  sub- 
sequently called)  of  the  widowed  lady  went  forth  to  the  hunt  in  the 
Waste  Forest.  He  hears  the  rattling  of  weapons  and  believes  that 
the  sounds  are  caused  by  devils,  from  whom  his  mother  had  warned 
him  to  protect  himself  by  making  the  sign  of  the  cross.    But  he 


qu'il  est   mort   et   en  Terre-Sainte."    But   the   text   does    not   warrant 
either  of  these  extreme  views. 

The  words  en  pels  (1.  3490,  0  man  seigneur  Gautier  en  pels) 
have  been  interpreted  as  equivalent  to  in  pace,  i.  e.  dead,  but  this  is 
not  a  necessary  interpretation. 

4  I  use  Baist's  Crestien's  von  Troyes  Contes  del  Graal  (Per- 
cevaus  li  galois):  Abdruck  der  Handschrift  Paris,  frangais  794, 
mit  Anmerkungen  und  Glossar  (Freiburg  i.  B).  This  publication, 
which  appeared  in  1912,  is  undated,  like  the  earlier  impression,  which 
did  not  bear  Baist's  name.  The  earlier  impression  (printed  for  private 
circulation  in  1909)  is  very  incorrect.  Cp.  R.  Weeks'  review  of  it, 
Romanic  Review,  II,  101  ff.  (1911). 

The  only  other  edition  of  the  poem  is  C.  Potvin's  in  vols.  1  and 
2  (Part  2)  of  his  Perceval  le  Gallois  ou  le  Conte  du  Graal  (6  vols., 
1866 — 1871).  The  Mons  MS,  which  constitutes  the  basis  of  Potvin's 
edition,  is  inferior.     Cp.  P.  Meyer,  Revue  Critique,  Sept.  1,   1866. 


224  The  Holy  Grail 

decides  that  he  will  not  do  this,  rather  he  will  wait  and  strike  down 
the  strongest  of  them  with  a  dart,  so  that  the  rest  will  not  venture 
to  attack  him.  Soon,  certain  knights,  in  brilliant  harness,  come 
into  sight  and  the  young  man  is  so  filled  with  admiration  at  their 
appearance  that  he  concludes  that  the  first  of  them  is  God  and  the 
others  angels.  A  dialogue  follows  in  which  Perceval  learns  from 
the  strangers  that  they  are  knights,  that  King  Arthur  confers 
knighthood  —  moreover,  in  reply  to  his  eager  questions,  they 
tell  him  the  use  of  each  piece  of  their  equipment.  It  is  an  amusing 
feature  of  this  dialogue  that,  instead  of  answering  the  inquiries 
of  the  strange  knights,  the  forest-bred  youth  seeks  the  gratification 
of  his  own  curiosity  by  counter-questions  as  to  their  armor  and 
other  matters  which  his  native  war-like  instincts  suggest.  He  goes 
back  home  and  relates  his  encounter  with  the  knights  to  his  mother. 
She  falls  into  a  swoon  at  the  recital,  for  his  father  and  brothers 
had  fallen  in  combat  and  she  had  endeavored  to  keep  the  boy 
ignorant  of  deeds  of  war.  He  insists,  however,  on  becoming  a 
knight  and  on  the  third  day  after  the  encounter  he  departs  for 
Arthur's  court.  Before  he  leaves,  she  gives  him  good  advice,  viz. 
to  aid  and  do  service  to  ladies,  and  as  a  reward  of  service  to  ask 
for  a  kiss  or  a  jewel  —  moreover,  always  to  seek  the  name  of  the 
companions  whom  he  might  join  on  the  road,  to  keep  company 
only  with  worthy  men,  and  to  pray,  whenever  he  came  to  a  church. 
Clad  like  a  Welsh  peasant  and  armed  with  a  dart,  he  rides  forth  to 
obtain  knighthood  at  Arthur's  court.  On  the  way  he  comes  to  a 
splendid  tent  which  he  mistakes  for  a  church.  There  is  a  girl 
asleep  inside,  and  he  snatches  from  her  a  kiss  and  a  ring,  thinking 
that  he  is  thereby  fulfilling  his  mother's  injunction.  Before  the 
gate  of  the  king's  castle  he  meets  a  knight  in  red  armor  with  a 
golden  cup.  He  now  rides  into  the  hall.  Everybody  there  takes 
him  for  a  fool,  although  they  are  struck  with  his  beauty.  Arthur 
sits  in  dejection,  his  principal  knights  being  away  and  the  Red 
Knight  having  just  carried  off  the  cup.  Perceval  acts  like  a  rustic, 
but  the  king  treats  him  kindly  —  and  he  now  asks  to  be  made 
a  knight,  demanding  also  the  red  armor  which  he  had  just  seen. 
The  seneschal,  Kay  (Kai)  laughs  at  him  and  bids  him  seek  it 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  225 

himself  from  the  Red  Knight,  which  Perceval  hastens  to  do.  As 
he  rides  out,  a  damsel  who  is  present  predicts  his  future  prowess, 
which  so  enrages  Kay  that  he  knocks  her  down  (1.  1030)  and 
kicks  into  the  fire  a  fool  who  had  been  wont  to  repeat  that  the 
damsel  would  not  laugh  until  she  beheld  the  best  of  knights.  Per- 
ceval follows  the  Red  Knight  and  bids  him  give  up  his  arms  and 
armour.  They  fight  and  Perceval  slays  his  adversary  with  a  dart.5 
Yones  who  has  followed  him  finds  him  put  to  it  to  remove  the 
knight's  armour.  He  is  preparing  to  burn  the  dead  body  in  order 
to  get  this  armour,  when  Yones  shows  him  how  to  disarm  the 
dead  man  and  to  arm  himself.  Perceval  sends  the  cup  back  to 
the  king  and  also  a  message  to  the  effect  that  he  would  return 
to  avenge  the  blow  which  Kay  had  given  the  damsel.  He  goes 
on  and  reaches  a  castle  whose  lord  is  an  old  knight  named  Gor- 
nemant  of  Gohorz.  Gornemant  entertains  him  and  teaches  him 
the  use  of  arms  and  all  knightly  practices.  In  especial,  he  is 
to  avoid  over-readiness  in  speaking  and  in  asking  questions  and  to 
give  up  his  habit  of  always  quoting  his  mother's  counsels.  Gor- 
nemant then  dubs  him  knight  and  sends  him  forth  to  return  to 
his  mother.  After  a  day's  journey  he  comes  to  Beaurepaire,  a 
town  defended  by  a  castle,  and,  on  entering  it,  finds  it  deserted. 
The  lady  of  the  castle,  who  is  a  damsel  of  surpassing  beauty,  wel- 
comes him  and  bids  him  to  her  table.  Being  mindful  of  Gorne- 
mant's  counsels,  he  remains  silent  and  she  must  speak  to  him 
first.  The  girl  turns  out  to  be  Gornemant's  niece,  Blanchefieur. 
That  night  she  comes  in  distress  to  Perceval's  bedside,  and,  in 
reply  to  his  questions,  tells  him  how  the  forces  of  King  Clama- 


6  LI.  1090ff.  In  "The  Death  of  the  Red  Knight  in  the  Story 
of  Perceval",  MLN,  XXXI,  53—55  (1916),  R.  B.  Pace  calls  attention 
to  the  fact  that  in  the  c'orresponding  passages  of  Sir  Perceval,  Pere- 
dur  and  Wolfram's  Parzival  there  is  nothing  to  represent  the  line, 
"Le  sane  et  la  cervelle  espant"  (1.  1095)  in  Chretien's  account  of  the 
killing.  He  argues  from  this  that  the  three  versions  are  not  based 
on  Chretien,  but  on  a  common  source.  The  works  in  question,  however, 
are,  on  no  theory,  literal  translations  of  Chretien;  consequently  I  cannot 
ascribe  to  this  omission  the  importance  that  Pace  does.  Pace  cites 
other  instances  of  the  same  phrase  in  Chretien's  romances. 


226  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

deus  encompass  the  castle  and  how  on  the  morrow  she  must  yield, 
but  rather  than  be  Clamadeus's  she  will  slay  herself.  He  promises 
her  help,  and  they  spend  the  night  together.6  The  next  day  he 
vanquishes  Clamadeus's  seneschal  and  sends  him  to  Arthur's  court. 
Clamadeus  presses  the  siege  without  success  and  then  challenges 
Perceval  to  single  combat.  Perceval  vanquishes  him,  also,  and 
6ends  him  to  Arthur's  court.  Clamadeus  and  his  seneschal  relate 
wonders  there  of  the  Red  Knight  (Perceval).  After  remaining 
awhile  with  Blanchefieur,  Perceval  takes  leave  of  her,  as  he  longs 
to  see  his  mother  again.  Now  comes  the  Grail  episode.  On  his 
journey  the  young  knight  comes  to  a  river  upon  which  there  is 
a  boat  with  two  men  in  it.  One  of  them,  in  reply  to  his  questions, 
directs  him  for  a  night's  shelter  to  his  own  castle  hard  by.  Per- 
ceval starts  for  it,  and,  being  at  first  unable  to  find  it,  reproaches 
the  fisher.  Suddenly  he  perceives  the  castle  before  him,  enters 
it,  is  disarmed,  clad  in  a  scarlet  mantle  and  led  into  a  great  hall. 
Therein  is  a  couch  upon  which  lies  an  old  man;  near  him  is  a 
fire  around  which  some  four  hundred  men  are  sitting.  Perceval 
tells  his  host  that  he  has  come  from  Beaurepaire.  A  squire  enters, 
bearing  a  sword,  and  on  it  is  written  that  it  will  never  break  save 
in  one  peril,  and  that  known  only  to  the  maker  of  it.  It  is  a 
present  from  the  host's  niece  to  be  bestowed  where  it  will  be 
well  employed.  The  host  gives  it  to  Perceval,  "to  whom  it  was 
adjudged  and  destined."  Hereupon  enters  another  squire,  bearing 
in  his  hand  a  lance,  from  the  head  of  which  a  drop  of  blood  runs 
down  on  the  squire's  hand.  Perceval  would  have  asked  concerning 
this  wonder,  but  he  remembers  Gornemant's  counsel  not  to  speak 
or  inquire  too  much.  Two  more  squires  enter  holding  each  a 
ten-branched  candlestick,  and  with  them  a  damsel,  a7  "graal"  in 
her  hands.     The  Grail  (to  use  the   English  form  of  the  word) 

e  It  has  been  sometimes  maintained  that  the  relations  of  the 
pair  during  the  night  they  spend  together  (cp.  Baist's  edition,  11.  2030  ff.) 
are  wholly  innocent,  but  there  is  not  the  slightest  suggestion  of  as- 
ceticism in  the  description  and  the  language  is  like  that  of  other  des- 
criptions of  similar  situations  in  the  romances. 

7  Observe  that  the  indefinite,  not  the   definite,   article  is  used  in 
the  passage. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  227 

shines  so  that  it  puts  out  the  light  of  the  candles  as  the  sun 
does  that  of  the  stars.  Thereafter  follows  a  damsel  holding  a 
(silver)  plate.  All  defile  past  between  the  fire  and  the  couch, 
but  Perceval  does  not  venture  to  ask  wherefore  the  Grail  is  used. 
Supper  follows  and  the  Grail  is  again  brought  in  with  each  course 
and  Perceval  was  curious  to  know  the  use  of  the  vessel,  but  he 
again  refrains  from  inquiring  when  he  thinks  of  Gornemant  and 
finally  puts  off  his  questions  till  the  morrow.  After  supper  Per- 
ceval is  led  to  his  chamber  and,  on  the  morrow,  awakening,  finds 
the  castle  deserted.  No  one  answers  his  calls.  Issuing  forth,  he 
sees  his  horse  saddled  and  the  drawbridge  down.  Thinking  to 
find  the  inhabitants  of  the  castle  in  the  forest,  he  rides  forth, 
but  the  drawbridge  closes  so  suddenly  behind  him  that,  had  not 
the  horse  leapt  quickly  forward,  it  would  have  gone  hard  with 
both  steed  and  rider.8  In  vain  Perceval  calls:  no  one  answers. 
He  proceeds  on  his  way  and  comes  to  an  oak,  beneath  which 
there  is  a  girl  sitting  who  is  holding  a  dead  knight  in  her  arms 
and  lamenting  over  him.  She  asks  him  where  he  has  passed  the 
night,  and  on  learning  it  tells  him  the  fisher  who  had  directed 
him  to  the  castle  and  his  host  were  one  and  the  same  person. 
Wounded  by  a  spear  thrust  through  both  thighs,  his  only  solace 
is  in  fishing,  whence  he  is  called  the  Fisher  King.  She  asks 
Perceval  whether  he  had  seen  the  bleeding  lance,  the  Grail  and 
the  silver  plate  and  whether  he  had  asked  their  meaning.  He 
replies,  no.  She  asks  him  his  name  and,  according  to  the  strange 
statement  of  Chretien's  poem,  he  answers  (1.  3537)  rightly  that 
it  was  Percevax  li  galois  (Perceval  the  Welshman),  although  he 
really  did  not  know  his  own  name  and  this  was  a  mere  guess.  She 
replies  that  it  ought  to  have  been  Perceval  the  Caitiff,  for  had  he 
asked  concerning  what  he  saw,  the  good  king  would  have  beeji) 
made  whole  again,  and  great  good  would  have  sprung  therefrom. 


9  In  "The  Drawbridge  of  the  Grail  Castle",  MLN,  XXXHI,  399  h\ 
(1918),  Esther  C.  Dunn  cites  a  perilous  bridge  from  the  Irish  saga, 
The  Wooing  of  Enter,  as  a  parallel.  Both  authors,  however,  were 
describing  fairy-tale  adventures  and  the  similarity  —  such  as  it 
is  —  between  the  two  passages  is,   doubtless,  purely  accidental. 


228  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

She  tells  him  too  that  he  has  been  guilty  of  his  mother's  death, 
for  she  had  died  of  grief  after  he  left  her  —  moreover,  that  she 
herself  is  his  cousin  and  had  been  brought  up  with  him.  Perceval 
offers  to  revenge  the  death  of  her  lover  upon  his  slayer.  She 
warns  him,  however,  about  the  sword  which  he  wears  and  which 
one  of  the  nieces  of  his  host  at  the  Grail  Castle  had  sent  him 
the  evening  before.  This  sword  easily  flies  to  pieces,  but,  to  mend 
it,  he  should  take  it  to  the  smith,  Trabuchet,  who  made  it  and  who 
lives  near  the  lake,  Cotovatre.  Next  follows  an  encounter  between 
Perceval  and  Orgellous  de  la  Lande,  the  jealous  husband  of  the 
lady  of  the  tent  from  whom  Perceval  had  snatched  a  kiss  and 
a  ring.  The  young  knight  overcomes  this  adversary,  too,  and 
sends  him  to  Arthur's  court  with  the  same  message  as  his  pre- 
decessors. When  he  hears  of  Perceval's  exploits,  Arthur  sets  forth 
with  his  whole  court  to  seek  him.  They  come  upon  him  plunged 
in  meditation  under  the  following  circumstances:  Snow  had  fallen, 
and  a  flock  of  geese  blinded  by  it  had  one  of  its  number  wounded 
by  a  falcon.  Three  blood  drops  had  fallen  upon  the  snow  and 
Perceval  beholding  them  was  plunged  in  deep  thought  on  the  red 
and  white  in  his  love's  face.  Sagremor  addresses  him  and  bids 
him  come,  and  when  he  does  not  answer,  tilts  against  him,  but 
is  overthrown.  Kay  fares  even  worse,  for  he  has  an  arm  and  a 
leg  broken.  Thus  Perceval's  vow  to  take  vengeance  on  him  has 
been  unconsciously  fulfilled.  Gawain  guesses  that  love  must  be 
mastering  the  strange  knight's  thoughts.  Accordingly,  he  ap- 
proaches Perceval  courteously  and  the  latter  is  brought  to  Arthur 
and  received  by  him  with  honour.  On  the  morrow  he  returns  to 
the  court  at  Caerleon  (Carlion)  with  Arthur  and  his  train.  The 
next  day  at  noon  a  hideous  damsel  appears  at  court,  riding  on 
a  yellow  mule.  She  curses  Perceval  for  having  omitted  to  ask 
concerning  the  lance  and  the  Grail;  if  he  had  done  so,  the  king 
would  have  been  healed  of  his  wound  and  ruled  his  land  in  peace; 
now  maidens  will  be  put  to  shame,  many  will  be  made  orphans 
and  widows,  and  many  knights  slain.  She  then  tells  of  the  adven- 
tures to  be  achieved  at  the  Castel  Orgellous  where  there  are  566 
knights,  each  with  his  lady  —  all  ready  to  joust,  with  the  best 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  229 

estate  in  the  world  as  the  prize  —  still  further,  of  the  adventure  of 
Montesclaire,  where  there  is  a  captive  maiden  awaiting  deliverance. 
Whoever  liberates  her  will  receive  not  only  praise  but  Vespee  as 
estranges  ranges9  (1.  4674),  which  was  destined  to  play  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  later  Grail  romances.  Gawain  undertakes  this 
last  adventure,  Gifflet  (Gifles)  undertakes  that  of  the  Castel  Or- 
gellous,  and  Perceval  vows  that  he  will  not  rest  two  nights  in  the 
same  place  until  he  has  learned  the  meaning  of  the  Grail  and  the 
spear.  —  The  next  1466  lines  (4709 — 6175)  are  devoted  to  ad- 
ventures of  Gawain;  but  despite  the  literary  excellence  of  the 
episode  of  the  dameisele  as  petites  mances  (the  damsel  with  the 
small  sleeves),  this  part  of  the  poem  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
Grail  theme,  save  that  at  the  end  Gawain  is  released  from  a  dan- 
gerous situation  in  Guigambresil's  castle,  on  condition  that  he 
will  bring  back  the  bleeding  lance  within  a  year's  time  (6160). 
—  The  tale  next  returns  to  Perceval  who  has  wandered  about  for 
five  years  without  thinking  of  God,  yet  performing  many  feats. 
He  meets  three  knights  accompanied  by  ladies,  all  clad  in  penitents' 
dress.  Perceval  did  not  know  it,  but  the  day  was  Good  Friday  and 
the  eldest  knight  rebukes  him  for  riding  fully  armed  on  such  a 
day.  He  must  confess  himself  to  a  holy  hermit  who  lives  hard  by. 
Perceval  goes  thither  and  accuses  himself  of  having  forgotten  God 
through  his  great  grief  at  not  having  learned  the  use  of  the  Grail. 
The  hermit  reveals  himself  to  the  penitent  as  his  uncle  —  tells 
him  that  he  is  in  sin  as  having  caused  his  mother's  death  and 
that  for  that  reason  he  could  not  ask  concerning  lance  and  Grail  — 
indeed,  that  but  for  her  prayers  he  would  not  have  lived  till  now. 
Perceval  remains  two  days  with  his  uncle,  receives  absolution,  and 
rides  forth.     The  remainder  of  Chretien's  poem  (6476 — 9198) 10 

*  Sword  with  the  Strange  Hangings. 

10  In  Ein  Namenbuch  zu  den  altfranzosischen  Artusepen. 
Teil  I,  pp.  25 ff.  (Greifswald  diss.  1882)  Fritz  Seiffert  has  made  a 
futile  effort  to  prove  that  Chretien's  division  of  the  Conte  del  Graal 
only  stops  with  1.  34934  (generally  regarded  as  the  end  of  Wauchier's 
section  of  the  poem).  He  admits,  it  is  true,  that  there  are  some  in- 
terpolations in  this  division.  No  one,  however,  has  accepted  his  ar- 
guments. 


230  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

deals  exclusively  with  adventures  of  Gawain  that  are  independent 
of  the  Grail  story. 

Now  for  the  analysis  of  Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph:11  Before 
the  coming  of  Christ  everbody,  including  the  patriarchs  and  pro- 
phets, went  to  hell,  but  He,  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  like  a  rose 
from  the  rose-bush,  came  in  order  that  He  might  deliver  them 
from  hell.  Christ  was  incarnated  when  Judaea  was  subject  to 
Rome  and  Pilate  governed  a  part  of  it.  Now,  a  soldier  of  Pilate's, 
Joseph  of  Arimathea,  loved  Christ,  but  dared  not  show  it  for 
fear  of  the  Jews.  Of  Christ's  disciples  one  —  his  seneschal,  Judas 
—  was  bad,  and  he  betrayed  him  to  the  Jews,  according  to  a 
bargain  concluded  at  the  house  of  Caiphas.  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
was  there  and  grieved  at  the  bargain.  On  Thursday  Jesus  gathers 
his  disciples  together  at  the  house  of  Simon  and  tells  them  that 
He  is  to  be  betrayed.  Then  we  have  Judas'  question  as  to  who 
was  to  betray  Him;  next,  our  Lord's  washing  of  His  disciples' 
feet  and  His  betrayal  by  Judas.  When  the  Jews  carry  off  Jesus, 
one  of  them  discovers  in  Simon's  house  the  vessel  in  which  He 
made  His  sacrament,  and  after  judgment  had  been  passed  on  Jesus, 
gave  it  to  Pilate,  who  kept  it  until  he  learns  of  Jesus'  death. 
Joseph  is  angry  at  this  and  claims  from  Pilate  pay  for  the  five 
years'  service  of  himself  and  his  five  knights.  Pilate  says  that 
he  will  give  Joseph  whatever  he  desires  and  Joseph  then  asks  for 
Christ's  body.  Pilate  thinks  it  insignificant  payment  and  grants 
it  him,  and  Joseph  hastens  to  the  cross,  but  the  guards  will  not 
surrender  the  body  to  him,  whereupon  he  complains  to  Pilate, 
who  sends  Nicodemus  to  see  that  he  obtains  it.  At  the  same  time, 
Pilate  also  gives  Joseph  the  vessel,  for  he  does  not  wish  to  have 
anything  pertaining  to  Jesus  about  him,  for  fear  of  accusation. 
Joseph  and  Nicodemus  take  down  the  body  and  the  former  washes 


11  Edited  by  Francisque  Michel,  Le  Roman  du  Saint  Graal 
(Bordeaux,  1841).  M.  le  comte  de  Douket  reprinted  Michel's  edition 
of  Robert's  Joseph  and  Merlin  in  the  Dictionnaire  des  Ugendes  du 
christianisme,    cols  454ff.  (Paris,   1855),    published   by   Abbe  Migne. 

There  is  a  Modern  French  (prose)  paraphrase  of  the  Joseph  in 
P.  Paris's   Les  romans   de   la   table  ronde,    I,   123 ff.  Paris,    1868). 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  231 

it,  which  makes  the  blood  flow  afresh  from  the  wounds.    Joseph 
brings  the  vessel  and  catches  the  blood  in  it,  wraps  the  body  in 
a  fine  cloth  and  entombs  it.    Then  follow  the  descent  into  Hell 
(with  the  liberation  of  the  saints  there)  and  the  Resurrection.  The 
Jews  are  frightened  by  the  report  of  the  Resurrection  and  they 
are  particularly  incensed  against  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  as  res- 
ponsible for  the  disappearance  of  Christ's  body;    the  latter  es- 
capes, but  Joseph  is  beaten  and  thrust  into  a  horrible  and  dark 
dungeon.   To  him  Christ  appears  with  His  vessel  in  a  great  light, 
and  a  long  dialogue  ensues.    He  tells  Joseph  that  God  had  per- 
mitted him  to  serve  Pilate,  in  order  that  he  might  (after  the 
crucifixion)  care  for  His  body.    He  tells  Joseph,  moreover,  that 
because  of  his  love  to  Him  he  shall  have  the  symbol  of  His  death 
and  give  it  for  keeping  to  whom  he  would.   He  then  gives  Joseph 
the  great,  precious,  vessel,  in  which  was  His  most  holy  blood. 
Joseph  wonders  how  it  came  there,  for  he  had  hidden  the  vessel 
in  his  house.  Joseph  is  to  entrust  the  vessel  to  three  persons  only, 
who  are  to  take  it  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity.    [By  the  "three 
persons"  Robert  really  means  Joseph,  Bron,  and  Bron's  grand- 
son.    The  mode  of  expression  is  clumsy,  beyond  measure.  ]     No 
sacrament  shall  ever  be  celebrated  but  that  Joseph  shall  be  re- 
membered.   At  Joseph's  request,  Christ  instructs  him  concerning 
the  Sacrament:  repeats  what  He  had  said  at  Simon's  house,  viz. 
that  the  bread  and  wine  were  His  flesh  and  blood,  then  adds 
that  the  tomb  is  the  altar,  the  grave-cloth  the  corporal  [i.e.  the 
"cloth,  usually  of  linen,  upon  which  the  consecrated  elements  are 
placed  during  the  celebration  of  the  mass,  and  with  which  the 
elements  or  the  remnants  of  them,   are  covered  after  the  cele- 
bration": New  English  Dictionary];  the  vessel  in  which  the  blood 
was  put  shall  be  called  the  chalice  and  the  paten  signifies  the 
tombstone.    All  who  see  Joseph's  vessel  shall  be  of  Christ  s  com- 
pany and  have  fulfillment  of  their  heart's  desire  and  joy  eter- 
nal.   Those  who  shall  be  able  to  understand  these  words  cannot 
be  made  the  victims  of  false  judgment  in  court  or  be  cheated 
out  of  their  rights  or  be  vanquished  "en  court  de  bataille",  if  they 
are  in  the  right.    [  The  author  adds :   I  dare  not,  nor  could  not, 


232  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tell  this  even  if  I  would,  had  I  not  the  great  book  wherein  are 
written  the  histories  made  and  related  by  the  great  clerks;  therein 
are  the  great  secrets  written  that  are  named  and  called  the  Grail."] 
Christ  gives  the  vessel  to  Joseph  and  leaves  him.  Joseph  remains 
in  prison,  no  man  heeding  him,  until,  when  Vespasian,  the  em- 
peror's son,  was  a  leper,  a  pilgrim  who  had  been  a  witness  of  Christ's 
miracles,  comes  to  Rome  and,  hearing  of  Vespasian's  affliction, 
tells  his  inn-keeper  of  Our  Lord's  marvellous  cures.  The  inn- 
keeper tells  the  emperor,  who  summons  the  pilgrim  before  him. 
The  latter  pledges  his  head  that  Vespasian  could  be  healed,  if  only 
something  of  Christ's  could  be  brought  to  Rome.  The  Emperor 
sends  messengers,  who  hear  Pilate's  story  of  the  Crucifixion  and 
of  Joseph.  The  Jews,  being  called  together,  confirm  Pilate's  story 
and  take  the  blame  for  Christ's  death  upon  themselves.  When 
the  messengers  inquire  whether  there  is  any  one  who  possesses 
something  belonging  to  Christ,  they  are  told  of  Verrine  [i.e.  Ve- 
ronica], who  is  brought  before  them  and  she  finally  relates  how 
at  the  request  of  the  Jews  she  wiped  Christ's  face  as  he  was  being 
led  forth  bound,  and  thus  got  the  likeness  of  Him.  They  take  her 
to  Rome,  and  the  pilgrim  and  Verrine  are  both  richly  rewarded. 
The  emperor  and  his  son  now  set  forth  for  Judaea,  in  order  to 
revenge  Christ's  death.  On  their  arrival  there,  Pilate  suggests 
a  trick  by  which  the  Jews,  believing  that  they  are  pleasing  Ves- 
pasian, make  full  confession  of  their  guilt  in  putting  Christ  to 
death.  Vespasian  consequently  kills  many  Jews  and  proclaims  that 
he  will  kill  them  all,  if  they  are  not  able  to  produce  Jesus  alive. 
One  Jew,  to  save  his  own  life,  offers  to  bring  Vespasian  to  Joseph, 
and  tells  the  story  of  why  the  latter  was  imprisoned.  Vespasian 
is  let  down  into  the  prison  and  finds  Joseph  alive,  although  for 
so  many  years  he  had  had  neither  food  nor  drink.  To  his  amaze- 
ment, Joseph  welcomes  him  by  name  and  expounds  to  him  the 
history  of  the  fall  of  the  evil  angek  and  of  our  first  parents  and 
of  the  redemption  of  man  by  Christ.  Vespasian  is  converted  to 
Christianity  and  sells  the  Jews  at  the  rate  of  thirty  for  a  penny. 
Joseph  proclaims  salvation  to  all  who  believe  in  Christ  and  in- 
vites those  who  accept  his  word  to  leave  their  possessions  and  go 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  233 

with  him  into  exile.  Among  those  who  go  are  his  sister  Enygeus 
and  her  husband,  Hebron  (Bron).  He  sets  off  with  his  company 
and  they  dwell  for  a  long  time  in  far-off  lands.  For  a  while 
things  go  well,  but  then  all  that  they  do  turns  to  naught  —  on 
account  of  carnal  sin.  The  host  complains  to  Hebron  that  they 
and  their  children  are  dying  of  hunger.  Hebron  reports  this  to 
Joseph,  who,  weeping,  goes  and  kneels  before  the  vessel  and  asks 
Christ,  in  prayer,  why  his  followers  suffer.  A  voice  from  the 
Holy  Ghost  answers  that  Joseph  is  not  at  fault,  but  that  he  is 
to  set  the  vessel  which  contains  the  blood  of  Christ  quite  openly 
before  the  people  and  to  recollect  how  He  had  been  betrayed  and 
beaten  and  how  at  the  Last  Supper  the  false  disciple,  perceiving 
that  he  was  detected,  withdrew  and  left  a  seat  vacant.  No  one 
will  occupy  it  before  Joseph.  In  the  name  of  the  table  at  which 
Christ  last  ate,  Joseph  is  to  prepare  another,  and  then  to  call 
his  brother-in-law,  Bron12  (as  Hebron  is  henceforth  generally  cal- 
led) and  make  him  go  into  the  water  to  catch  a  fish,  and  the 
f  irst  he  catches  Joseph  is  to  put  it  on  the  table  and  then  to  take 
the  vessel,  set  it  in  the  middle  of  the  table,  cover  it  with  a  towel 
and  then  place  Bron's  fish  opposite  it.  The  people  are  now  to  be 
called,  and  they  will  soon  see  whose  sin  has  caused  these  calami- 
ties to  befall  them.  Joseph  is  to  sit  where  Christ  sat  at  the  Last 
Supper,  with  Bron  at  his  right  hand.  And  Bron  is  to  draw  back  the 
space  of  one  seat,  to  signify  the  seat  of  Judas,  and  the  place  thus 
left  empty  is  not  to  be  filled  until  Enygeus  shall  have  a  child 
by  Bron,  her  husband,  and  when  the  child  in  question  is  born, 
that  shall  be  his  seat.  Let  Joseph  then  bid  all  the  people  who 
have  faith  in  the  Trinity  and  have  kept  the  commandments  of 
Christ  to  sit  down  to  the  grace  of  Our  Lord.  Joseph  does  all  this. 
Part  of  the  people  sit  down,  part  do  not.  The  sitters  are  so  filled 
with  sweetness  and  the  desire  of  their  heart  that  they  forget  their 
companions;  the  others  feel  nothing.  One  of  the  sitters,  Petrus, 
asks  the  latter  if  they  feel  nothing,  and  when  they  answer  that 
they  do  not,  tells  them  that  it  is  because  they  are  defiled  with 
sin.    The  sinners  then  depart,  but  Joseph  bids  them  come  back 


1« 


The  nominative  form  is,  of  course,  Brons, 


234  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

each  day.  Thus  Joseph  detects  the  sinners  and  thus  is  the  vessel 
first  proved.  The  fortunate  ones  tell  the  others  of  the  delight 
and  joy  which  fills  them  and  inform  them  that  the  vessel  severs 
them  from  those  that  sin,  as  it  holds  no  company  with  and  bears 
no  love  towards  any  sinner.  The  sinners  ask  the  name  of  the 
vessel.  The  reply  is  that  it  is  called  the  Graal,  for  it  is  agreeable 
to  all  who  see  it.  [  This  is,  of  course,  a  rough-and-ready  etymology 

—  Gryaal  and  agreer  —  such  as  mediaeval  literature  abounds  in.  ] 
A  few  lines  further  down  (11.  2671  ff.)  the  author  again  rings 
the  change  on  this  etymology.  Since  all  this  is  true,  says  the  poet, 
"  we  call  it  the  story  of  the  Grail  and  it  will  bear  the  name  of  the 
Grail  everywhere." 

One  sinner  does  not  depart  with  the  rest.  He  is  Moyses  by 
name,  a  hypocrite,  and  with  much  weeping  begs  the  people  to 
intercede  with  Joseph,  so  that  he  may  share  the  delights  of  the 
Grail  table.  Joseph  says  that  Moyses  must  be  a  hypocrite  and 
undeserving,  since  he  could  not  sit  at  the  table.  —  At  this  point 
there  is  a  lacuna  in  the  MS.;  the  sequel,  however,  shows  that 
Moyses  tried  to  occupy  the  empty  seat,  but  the  earth  opened  and 
swallowed  him  up.  —  Joseph  prays  to  Christ  to  show  him  what 
has  become  of  Moyses.  The  voice  tells  Joseph  again  about  the 
empty  seat  and  how  the  one  at  Joseph's  table  was  not  to  be  filled 
until  the  third  man,  who  will  be  of  Joseph's  line,  should  come  — 
the  son  of  Bron  and  Enygeus  —  and  that  his  son  should  fill  the, 
seat.  [So  Alain  here  is  "the  third  man."  This  is,  however,  a 
blunder,  for  1.  3375,  it  is  Alain's  son,  as  is  required  by  the  whole 
plan  of  the  poem,  ]  Moyses  had  stayed  behind  only  to  deceive; 
he  had  got  his  deserts  and  no  more  should  be  heard  of  him  until 
the  man  who  was  destined  to  fill  the  empty  seat  should  come. 
Joseph  repeats  to  Bron  what  the  Holy  Spirit  had  said  of  Moyses. 

—  In  the  course  of  time,  Bron  and  Enygeus  have  twelve  sons  and 
are  greatly  troubled  about  them  and,  on  the  advice  of  his  wife, 
Bron  asks  Joseph  what  should  be  done  with  them.  Joseph  prays 
before  the  vessel  for  enlightenment.  God  sends  an  angel  to  tell  him 
that  they  will  all  be  dedicated  to  God's  service,  and  that  eleven 
will  marry,  if  they  wish  to,  but  one  of  them,  the  twelfth,  namprl 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  235 

Alain  (Alein),13  will  remain  single.  Joseph  must  bid  Bron  and  his 
wife  bring  him  this  son,  who  is  to  obey  Joseph.  Furthermore, 
when  Joseph  consults  the  vessel  about  Alain,  the  voice  directs  him 
to  relate  to  his  nephew  all  about  Christ's  sufferings,  and  death, 
and  about  his  [  Joseph's  ]  imprisonment  and  the  vessel  and  to  show 
him  the  vessel  and  the  blood  therein,  to  give  him  also  religious  in- 
struction, which  he  must  impart  to  others,  and  to  tell  him  that  from 
him  shall  issue  an  heir  who  is  to  keep  the  vessel;  Alain  is  to  take 
charge  of  his  brethren  and  sisters  and  go  westwards  to  the  furthest 
point  possible,  preaching  Christ.  An  angel  will  bring  a  letter  for 
Petrus  to  read,  directing  him  to  go  whither  he  lists.  Petrus  will 
say,  that  he  wishes  to  go  to  the  vales  of  Avaron  [  a  mistake,  doubt- 
less, for  Avalon).  [Here  again,  1.  3112,  a  blunder;  for  11.  3132, 
3193 ff.,  it  is  to  remain  unread  until  Alain's  son  reads  it  to  him.] 
Thither  shall  he  go  and  wait  for  the  son  of  Alain,  (who  is  here, 
1.  3128,  first  named)  and  he  shall  not  pass  away  until  the  one 
shall  come  who  will  read  him  his  letter  and  teach  him  the  power 


13  In  the  prose-rendering  of  Joseph  in  one  passage  (Weidner's 
ed.,  p.  127),  the  epithet,  "li  gros"  is  attached  to  Alain's  name,  for 
what  reasons  no  one  can  say.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  Alain  was  a 
common  name  in  the  ruling  house  of  Brittany  and  that  circumstance 
may  very  well  have  suggested  to  Robert  the  name  for  the  character 
in  the  first  instance,  as  Heinzel,  p.  99,  remarks,  it  is  most  likely  (as 
Heinzel,  p.  122,  has  still  further  suggested)  that  the  author  of  the 
prose  redaction  derived  his  epithet  from  the  same  source  —  more 
particularly,  from  the  Breton  prince  of  the  ninth  century  called  Alan 
Mor  (in  French  histories,  Alain  le  Grand).  Heinzel's  alternative  con- 
jecture that  the  epithet  originated  with  the  Grand  St.  Graal  (really 
a  later  romance)  is  not  admissible.  To  be  sure,  the  prose-rendering 
of  Robert's  Merlin  shows  contamination  with  the  Grand  St.  Graal, 
e.  g.  Sommer,  II,  19,  where  Nascien,  who  belongs  to  the  Galahad 
Early  History,  usually  takes  the  place  of  Alain  in  the  MSS.,  it  seems. 
But  "Alain  li  Gros"  is  apparently  the  authorized  reading  at  p.  127 
of  the  prose  Merlin,  and  the  Grand  St.  Graal  (like  the  Didot- 
Perceval,  Perlesvaus,  etc.),  no  doubt,  borrowed  from  it.  After  all, 
the  question  has  little  importance,  since  the  epithet  does  not  occur 
in  Robert.  Brugger's  discussion  of  Alain,  Morf  Festschrift,  consists 
so  entirely  of  a  chain  of  hazardous  speculations  that  it  seems  to  me 
valueless. 


236  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  the  vessel  and  tell  him  the  fate  of  Moyses.  After  that  he  will 
die.  All  these  things  Joseph  must  repeat  to  his  nephews.  This 
Joseph  does  and  tells  Bron  and  Enygeus  that  Alain  is  to  govern 
his  brothers  and  sisters.  —  The  next  day,  whilst  they  are  at  the 
Grail  service,  a  heavenly  letter  appears.  Joseph  gives  it  to  Petrus, 
who  declares  his  intention  of  departing  for  the  vales  of  Avaron 
and  awaiting  there  God's  grace.  Bron  calls  his  children  and  again 
warns  them  to  be  obedient  to  Alain.  So  Alain  goes  forth  with  his 
brothers  into  distant  lands  and  preaches  everywhere  the  name  of 
Christ.  Petrus  wishes  to  depart  also,  but  he  is  petitioned  to  stay, 
and,  inasmuch  as  this  is  the  will  of  Heaven,  as  is  declared  by  an 
angel,  he  consents.  He  is  to  see  something  more  of  the  vessel.  The 
angel  continues:  "The  Lord  knows  Bron  for  a  worthy  man  and 
it  was  therefore  his  will  that  he  should  go  fishing.  He  is  to  keep 
the  vessel  after  Joseph,  who  must  instruct  him  properly,  especi- 
ally concerning  the  holy  words  which  God  spake  to  Joseph  in  the 
prison,  which  are  sweet  and  precious,  gracious  and  merci- 
ful, and  which  are  properly  called  the  Secrets  of  the  Grail."  Jo- 
seph must  then  give  the  vessel  to  Bron  and  warn  him  to  hold  it 
in  high  regard  —  else  he  will  pay  dearly  for  it.  Hereafter,  Bron's 
right  name  is  to  be  "The  Rich  Fisher."  His  honor  will  con- 
tinue to  increase  on  account  of  the  fish  which  he  caught  when 
this  grace  began.  Bron,  too,  is  to  go  westward  and  dwell  where 
he  pleases.  There  he  must  wait  for  his  son's  son,  and  when  the 
latter  has  arrived,  the  vessel  and  the  grace  (that  accompanies  it) 
are  to  be  given  to  him.  Then  the  meaning  and  significance  of  the 
blessed  Trinity  will  have  been  fulfilled  by  the  division  among  the 
three.  With  the  third  one  [  here,  1.  3373,  Alain's  son,  not  Alain, 
himself,  as  in  1.  2790]  Christ  will  deal  as  it  pleases  him.  After 
the  vessel  has  been  given  to  Bron,  Petrus  is  to  go,  as  he  may  then 
truly  say  that  he  has  seen  Bron,  the  Rich  Fisher,  put  in  possession 
of  the  vessel,  and  God  will  have  him  in  his  keeping.  When  all 
this  is  done,  Joseph  is  to  go  to  perfect  joy  and  life  everlasting. 
His  descendants  will  be  safe.  On  the  morrow  Joseph  at  the  ser- 
vice transfers  the  Grail  to  the  Rich  Fisher,  and  repeats  to  the 
people  everything,  as  the  voice  commanded,  save  the  words  spoken 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  237 

to  him  by  Christ  in  the  prison.  These  he  confides  to  the  Rich 
Fisher  alone.  He  committed  them  to  him  in  writing,  also,  and  ex- 
pounded to  him  the  secrets.  The  people  were  touched  at  the  sight. 
They  knew  that  Joseph  had  surrendered  his  authority,  but  did 
not  exactly  know  how.  Amid  weeping  and  prayer,  the  Good  Fisher 
left  the  assembly.  He  stayed  three  days  longer  with  Joseph  and 
then  went  forth.  Joseph,  however,  remained  in  the  land  where 
he  was  born.  —  The  poet  adds  now  that  it  will  be  fitting  to  tell 
the  subsequent  fortunes  of  Alain,  Petrus,  Moyses,  and  the  Rich 
Fisher.  As  already  stated,  he  expresses,  moreover,  the  intention 
to  treat  these  themes,  if  he  can  find  them  in  a  book.  For  the  pre- 
sent, however,  he  will  leave  aside  these  four  branches  and  take 
up  a  fifth  —  that  is  to  say,  the  Merlin  which  follows  immedia- 
tely after,  but  of  which  only  a  fragment  in  its  original  verse-form 
has  been  preserved.  The  object  of  the  Merlin,  of  course,  was  to 
attach  the  story  of  the  Grail  to  the  popular  Arthurian  cycle. 

Now,  in  discussing  the  origin  of  the  Grail  legend,  whatever 
conclusions  we  may  reach  ultimately  concerning  this  question,  it 
seems  advisable  to  take  up  first  the  sources  of  Robert  de  Boron's 
Joseph,  for  Birch-Hirschfeld14  has,  in  my  judgment,  fixed  these 
sources  in  the  essentials  beyond  reasonable  doubt,  whereas  the  mat- 
ter is  not  so  clear  in  the  case  of  Chretien's  Perceval.  To  be  sure, 
eminent  Celticists  have  endeavored  to  prove  a  Celtic  connection 
for  Robert's  poem,  but,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  vain. 

First,  as  for  Robert's  idea  of  the  Grail,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  Grail,  in  his  conception,  is  not  a  vessel  to  which  appertains 
the  marvellous  power  of  supplying  food  and  drink,  youth,  health, 
and  strength.  Such  a  conception  of  its  power  is  found  in  some  Grail 
romances  later  than  his.  With  Robert,  however,  it  is  a  vessel  of 
"grace"  in  whose  service  only  the  good  and  pure  can  remain.  The 
delights  which  the  Grail  imparts  to  those  that  sit  at  the  Grail  table 
are  purely  spiritual.  Sinners  are : excluded  from  these  delights, 
and  the  hypocrite,  like  Moyses  (Moses),  who  tries  to  partake  of 

14  Sage  vom  Gral,  pp.  215  ff.  See  farther  on  this  subject  the 
interpretation  of  the  Grail  wanderings  in  Robert's  Joseph  which  I  offer, 
Part  IV,  below. 


238  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

them  is  stricken  with  punishment.  This  last  idea  was  suggested 
by  Judas's  connection  with  the  Last  Supper  in  St.  Matthew, 
XXVI,  21  ff:  "21.  And  as  they  did  eat,  he  said,  Verily  I  say 
unto  you  that  one  of  you  shall  betray  me.  22.  And  they  were 
exceeding  sorrowful  and  began  every  one  of  them  to  say  unto  him, 
Lord,  is  it  I?  23.  And  he  answered  and  said,  He  that  dippeth 
his  hand  with  me  in  the  dish,  the  same  shall  betray  me.  24.  The 
Son  of  man  goeth  as  it  is  written  of  him:  but  woe  unto  that  man 
by  whom  the  Son  of  man  is  betrayed!  it  had  been  good  for  that 
man  if  he  had  not  been  born.  25.  Then  Judas  which  betrayed  him 
answered  and  said,  Master,  is  it  I?  He  said  unto  him,  Thou 
hast  said." 

When  Joseph  in  Robert's  poem  founds  the  Grail  table,  it 
is  modelled  completely  after  the  table  of  the  Last  Supper  —  only 
here  the  Fish,  the  symbol  of  Christ,  takes  the  place  of  Christ.  The 
sinners  who  sit  down  undeservingly  at  the  sacred  table  suffer  the 
punishment  which  their  prototype,  Judas,  suffered.  But  how  did 
th«  dish  of  the  Last  Supper  become  connected  with  Joseph  of 
Arimathea?  This  did  not  happen  in  any  oral  tradition.  It  was 
the  invention  of  Robert,  who  took  here  as  his  starting-point  va- 
rious hints  in  certain  uncanonical  writings  of  Early  Christianity, 
viz.  the  Vindicta  Salvatoris,  which  contains  the  legend  of  St.  Ve- 
ronica —  furthermore,  a  Latin  composition  on  Pilate  (Narratio 
Josephi),  and  the  famous  apocryphal  Evangelium  Nicodemi, 
more  especially,  the  First  Part,  called  the  Gesta  Pilati.  From 
the  first  of  these  Robert  learned  of  Vespasian's  supposed  expe- 
dition to  Judaea  to  revenge  on  the  Jews  the  death  of  our  Saviour. 
To  be  sure,  Tiberius  is  represented  here  as  the  Roman  emperor  and 
Vespasian  merely  as  a  general.  But  Joseph  of  Arimathea  ap- 
pears in  the  Vindicta  as  a  contemporary  of  Vespasian's  —  that  is 
to  say,  as  still  living  some  forty  years  after  the  death  of  Christ  — 
for  in  that  work  he  tells  the  messenger  of  the  Emperor  Tiberius 
of  his  former  imprisonment  from  which  Christ  had  delivered  him. 
Robert  learned  from  the  Latin  poem  on  Pilate  that  Vespasian  was 
emperor.  He  makes  him  also  Joseph's  deliverer.  This  last  fea- 
ture may  have  been  purely  of  Robert's  invention;  on  the  other  bo*~ * 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  239 

it  may  possibly  have  been  suggested  by  a  passage  in  Suetonius's 
life  of  Vespasian  (Ch.  5),  where  it  is  said  that  "one  of  the  noble 
captives,  named  Joseph,  when  he  was  put  in  chains,  kept  affirm- 
ing that  he  would  soon  be  freed  by  Vespasian."  What  Robert  owed 
to  the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus  was  the  fuller  information  regarding 
the  imprisonment  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Christ's  visiting 
him  in  the  dungeon.  He  preferred,  however,  to  interweave  the 
legend  of  St.  Veronica  with  that  of  Joseph  and  so  postpone  the 
liberation  of  the  latter  until  the  time  of  Vespasian.  So  all  that 
Robert  tells  about  Vespasian's  connection  with  Joseph  and  Christ's 
visit  to  Joseph  in  the  prison  was  derived  from  or  suggested  by 
these  sources. 

Now,  in  the  history  of  the  Holy  Grail,  as  given  in  Robert's 
poem,  we  have  an  undeniable  parallelism  with  the  history  of  Christ 
in  his  closing  days.  The  Grail  is  present  with  Christ  at  the  Last 
Supper;  like  Christ  it  is  brought  to  Pilate;  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
receives  it,  as  he  receives  the  body  of  our  Lord;  it  is  present  at  the 
entombment,  remains  then  concealed  and  at  last  reappears  with 
the  risen  Christ.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  we  have  in  Robert's  histo- 
ry of  the  Holy  Grail  a  characteristic  piece  of  mediaeval  symbolism. 
The  Grail  is  the  symbol  of  Christ's  body.  A  passage  in  the  Gesta 
Filatiy  ch.  15,  which  describes  the  visit  of  Jesus  to  Joseph  in  the 
prison,  furnishes  the  basis  for  still  further  symbolism  in  Robert's 
poem.  In  the  Gesta  after  describing  the  appearance  of  Jesus  to 
him  in  the  prison,  his  consternation,  and  the  manner  in  which  Jesus 
revived  him,  Joseph  is  made  to  say:  "Rabbi,  thou  art  Elias?" 
And  he  replied:  "I  am  Jesus,  whose  body  thou  didst  seek  from 
Pilate  and  didst  wrap  it  in  clean  linen  and  thou  didst  put  a  nap- 
kin over  my  face  and  didst  place  me  in  thy  new  monument  and 
didst  roll  a  stone  to  the  door  of  the  monument.  Then  I  said  to 
him  who  was  speaking  to  me:  Show  me,  O  Lord,  where  I  placed 
thee!  And  he  led  me  and  showed  me  the  place  where  I  had  laid 
him  and  the  cloth  which  I  put  upon  him,  and  the  napkin  which 
I  wrapped  his  face  with,  and  I  recognized  that  it  was  Jesus.'1 

Now,  all  the  chief  points  of  this  passage  recur  in  Robert's 
poem,  in  some  respects  amplified.   But  when  Jesus  comes  to  men- 


240  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tion  the  Last  Supper  we  have  the  following  symbolical  identi- 
fication of  the  Eucharist  with  the  Entombment,  Christ  saying  to 
Joseph:  ''When  you  took  me  down  from  the  cross  and  laid  me  in 
the  sepulchre,  that  is  the  altar  on  which  those  who  will  sacrifice 
me  will  put  me;15  the  cloth  in  which  I  was  wrapped  will  be  called 
the  corporal;  the  vessel  in  which  you  put  my  blood,  when  you 
received  it  from  my  body,  will  be  called  the  chalice;  the  paten 
which  will  go  on  top,  will  mean  the  stone  which  was  placed  over 
me,  when  thou  hadst  laid  me  in  the  sepulchre."  The  detailed  identi- 
fication here  of  the  different  objects  that  figure  in  the  interment 
of  Christ  is  found  elsewhere  in  the  Middle  Ages16  —  only  in  these 


16  The  mass,  it  is  to  be  recollected,  is,  according  to  the  Catholic 
conception,  a  sacrifice. 

,e  Cp.  Heinzel,  p.  103,  for  a  list  of  mediaeval  writers  who  offer 
such  allegorical  interpretations  of  the  objects  used  in  the  mass.  Hertz, 
p.  425,  points  to  the  Greek  treatise  of  doubtful  authorship,  printed  by 
Migne  in  vol.  98  of  his  Patrologia  Graeca,  cols.  383 ff.,  among  the 
writings  of  Germanos,  Arcbbishop  of  Constantinople  (who  died  in  733), 
as  the  earliest  allusion  to  a  vessel  in  which  the  blood  that  flowed 
from  Christ's  side  was  received.  The  work  is  entitled  (in  Migne's 
Latin  translation)  Historia  ecclesiastica  et  mystica  contemplatio  and 
is  certainly  not  later  than  the  tenth  century.  The  allusion  occurs 
cols.  400  B  and  421 D,  and  the  vessel  is  identified  with  the  cup  of 
the  Eucharist.  In  these  passages,  and,  also,  in  397  A  and  B,  the 
other  objects  used  in  the  Byzantine  mass  are,  likewise,  interpreted  in 
allegorical  fashion.  Hertz  does  not  note  what,  however,  is  well  worth 
observing,  that  in  397  B  the  author  of  this  treatise  interprets  the 
paten  [Greek  diskbs]  which  bore  the  holy  bread  in  the  mass  as  "the 
bed  [kline]  in  which  the  body  of  the  Lord  is  prepared  by  the  priest 
and  deacon,  who  are  [i.  e.  represent]  Joseph  and  Nicodemus."  These 
two  names  are  again  connected  with  the  allegorical  interpretation  of 
the  dishos  at  421 D,  as,  indeed,  they  occur  in  the  Eucharistic  liturgy 
of  the  Eastern  Church. 

For  the  symbolical  interpretations  in  Robert,  especially,  see  Birch- 
Hirschfeld,  pp.  219  ff.,  and  W.  W.  Newell,  Journal  of  American  Folk- 
Lore,  X,  22  ff.  As  a  very  instructive  example  of  these  allegorical 
interpretations  of  the  mass  and  the  objects  connected  therewith  I  would 
add  Durandus,  Rationale  Divinorum  Officiorum,  Book  IV,  Ch.  51 
(Naples,  1859).  He  was  the  leading  writer  on  Christian  ritual  in  the 
twelfth  century. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  241 

other  interpretations  the  chalice  is  said  to  be  the  tomb  (se- 
pulchrum),  whereas  here  it  is  said  to  be  the  vessel  of  the  Last 
Supper  which  Joseph  had  used  to  collect  the  blood  of  Jesus  in. 
It  would  seem,  then,  that  by  a  confused  symbolism  this  vessel 
—  i.e.  the  Holy  Grail  —  is  taken  as  the  tomb  in  which  Christ  was 
laid.  In  the  Gesta,  as  we  have  seen,  Jesus  took  Joseph  to  the 
tomb  and  showed  him  the  objects  which  have  just  been  inter- 
preted symbolically.  In  the  poem  he  simply  gives  him  the  Grail, 
which  he  expressly  declares  is  the  symbol  of  his  death  as  well  as 
of  the  Eucharist.  Just  as  the  Mediaeval  Church  commonly  inter- 
preted the  Last  Supper  in  terms  of  the  Burial  of  Christ,  Robert 
took  now  the  vessel  of  the  Last  Supper  (the  Grail)  as  the  symbol 
of  both  the  Burial  and  the  Eucharist.  In  fine,  Joseph,  who  laid 
Christ's  body  in  the  gave,  is  the  natural  guardian  of  the  symbol 
which  commemorates  that  event;  thus,  too,  the  Grail  is  the  natural 
centre  of  all  the  symbolism  of  mass  and  sacrament,  and  we  have, 
consequently,  the  intimate  union  of  the  Joseph  legend  with  the 
story  of  the  Grail. 

Furthermore,  as  we  have  endeavored  to  prove  elsewhere  in 
this  work,17  Robert,  in  the  last  division  of  his  poem,  which  deals 
with  the  peregrinations  of  the  Grail  and  its  company,  through 
a  new  act  of  symbolism,  has  expressed  in  narrative  form  what 
Jesus  himself  insisted  on  as  the  object  of  his  mission  on  earth 
and  the  very  foundation  of  the  Christian  Church  —  namely,  the 
establishment  of  the  New  Covenant,  symbolized  by  the  cup  of 
the  Holy  Communion  (that  is  to  say,  the  Grail  in  Robert's  con- 
ception), to  take  the  place  of  the  Old  Covenant. 

The  interpretation  of  the  events  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
sort  of  allegorical  adumbration  of  those  of  the  New  Testament18 
was  still  a  vital  element  in  the  Biblical  exegesis  of  the  age,  and 
so  there  was  no  new  departure  in  Robert's  employment  of  this 
method.  It  is  to  be  observed,  too,  that  in  no  other  period  of  the 
Church  has  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation  been  so  immediately 


17  Cp.  Part  IV. 

18  According  to  the  well-known  doctrine  of  types. 


242  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  centre  of  theological  interest  and  discussion  as  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  twelfth  century  and  the  early  decades  of  the  thirteenth.19 
It  became  so,  especially,  through  the  mystical  writings  of  Hugh 
of  St.  Victor,  Bonaventura,  and  others,  and  in  1215  was  finally 
adopted,  on  the  initiative  of  Pope  Innocent  III,  by  the  Fourth 
Lateran  Council  of  the  Church  as  a  part  of  the  orthodox  Christian 
faith,  being  directly  attached  to  the  mysteries  of  the  Trinity  and 
Incarnation  in  the  canons  which  promulgated  it,   very  much  as 


19 


This  has  been  emphasized  especially  by  M.  Gaster,  Folk-Lore, 
II,  55  (1891)  and  by  Miss  L.  A.  Fisher,  The  Mystic  Vision  in  the 
Grail  Legend  and  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  pp.  9  ff.,  Columbia  Studies 
in  English  and  Comparative  Literature  (New  York,  1917).  As  far  as 
the  Grail  is  concerned,  the  main  thesis  of  Miss  Fisher's  book  —  a 
study  that  deserves  the  careful  attention  of  all  Grail  students  —  may 
be  stated  in  the  author's  own  words  (p.  55):  "that  the  Celtic  vessel 
of  increase  and  plenty,  adapted  to  Christian  purposes,  became  the 
symbol  of  the  miracle  of  transubstantiation  and  that  any  accessory  of 
the  mass  (i.  e.  ciborium,  chalice,  paten,  or  even  altar -stone)  intimately 
connected  with  the  miracle,  might  be  described  as  that  symbol,  in 
other  words,  might  be  the  Grail." 

Miss  Fisher  starts  out  by  accepting,  without  argument,  the  theory 
that  the  Grail  is  ultimately  of  Celtic  origin,  but,  as  she  goes  on,  her 
faith  in  this  theory  evidently  weakens.  Cp.  pp.  74,  81,  123 f.  I  would 
like  to  call  attention,  especially,  to  Miss  Fisher's  refutation,  pp.  63 ff. 
(including  notes),  of  what  Miss  Weston  had  said,  Legend  of  Sir  Perce- 
val, II,  232  f.  in  regard  to  the  "secrets"  of  the  Grail  (cp.  the  Joseph, 
11.  935,  3336).  Miss  Weston  objected  to  interpreting  (as,  for  example, 
Heinz  el,  p.  87,  does)  the  term  as  referring  to  the  words  which  the 
priest  speaks  in  consecrating  the  bread  and  wine  and  which  were 
supposed  to  convert  them  into  bread  and  wine,  respectively,  on  the 
ground  that  "the  formula  of  consecration  is  not  and  never  has  been 
secret."  But  Miss  Fisher  shows  by  examples  that  in  mediaeval  usage 
these  words  were  actually  called  "secret"  —  no  doubt,  because  in 
that  period,  as  in  other  periods,  "secret"  was  applied  not  only  to  what 
is  not  known,  but  to  what  is  not  understood.  Miss  Fisher  has  been 
equally  successful,  pp.  63,  note  1,  in  refuting  by  quotation  from  a 
contemporary  writer  Miss  Weston's  idea  (I,  333)  that  between  Robert 
and  the  Queste  the  interest  had  shifted  "from  contenu  to  container" 
—  i.  e.  from  the  holy  blood  to  the  Grail.  It  is  really  a  mere  question 
of  metonomy. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  243 

we  see  this  done  in  the  looser  form  of  a  narrative  in   Robert's 
Joseph.™ 

The  relation  of  Robert  to  Chretien  will  probably  always  re- 
main a  subject  of  debate.  The  advocates  of  a  non-Christian  origin 
for  the  Grail  legend  assume  that  both  were  drawing  independently 
from  lost  sources.21  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  only  feature  which 
these  two  poems  on  the  Grail  have  unmistakably  in  common  is  the 
term  "The  Rich  Fisher"  (Robert,  1.  3387)  or  "Good  Fisher"  (1. 
3456)  as  applied  to  the  keeper  of  the  Grail.22  To  be  sure,  that  feature 
is  a  very  distinctive  one.  Neither  the  lance  nor  the  tailleor  (paten),23 
however,  of  Chretien's  procession  appear  in  the  Joseph,  and  the 
whole  interest  is  centred  on  the  Grail.  But,  after  all,  there  is 
nothing  inconsistent  in  these  facts  with  the  view  that  Robert  deriv- 
ed the  suggestion  of  his  poem  from  Chretien  and  not  from  any 


20  In  the  light  of  the  canons  of  1215,  it  is  interesting  to  read 
what  Heinzel  remarks,  pp.  87f.,  on  the  close  association  of  the  Trinity 
and  the  Grail  in  Robert's  Joseph.  It  may  be  that  Robert  had  some 
definite  treatise  as  the  source  of  his  ideas  about  the  intimate  association 
of  the  Trinity  and  the  Eucharist  which  was  taking  shape  in  the 
theological  thought  of  the  time. 

31  This  was,  also,  in  part,  the  opinion  of  Heinzel  (pp.  92 ff.), 
one  of  the  most  eminent  advocates  of  the  Christian  origin  of  the  Grail 
legend.  Birch-Hirschfeld  (pp.  195ff.),  who  imagined  —  wrongly,  as 
I  have  tried  to  prove  —  that  the  Didot-Perceval  was  a  prose  rendering 
of  a  lost  poem  by  Robert  de  Boron,  regarded  that  romance  as  the 
source  of  Chretien's  Perceval.  More  recently,  Foerster  in  his  Chretien 
Wbrterbuch  (pp.  158*ff.)  has  tried  to  identify  the  "livre"  given  to 
Chretien  by  Count  Philip  with  Robert's  Joseph.  Neither  of  these 
theories,  however,  have  attracted  any  adherents. 

One  might  be  inclined  to  add  the  quality  of  luminosity,  which 
Robert,  11.  719,  2032,  as  well  as  Chretien,  1.  3188,  ascribes  to  the 
Grail.  Apart  from  the  fact,  however,  that  this  is  a  common  feature 
of  talismans  in  folk-lore,  Robert  may  very  well  be  transferring  to  the 
Grail  here  the  dazzling  light  which  in  one  of  his  sources,  the  Evan- 
gelium.  Nicodemi  (Part  I,  ch.  15),  marked  the  appearance  of  Jesus  in 
Joseph's  prison.  See  Evangelia  Aprocrypha,  pp.  359  f.  (Leipzig,  1853), 
edited  by  C.  Tischendorf. 

The  paten  is  mentioned  in  Christ's  speech  quoted  p.  231, 
above,  but  it  does  not  figure  in  the  story. 


244  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

hypothetical  lost  sources  concerning  the  Grail.24  It  was  not  neces- 
sary that  he  should  have  any  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Perceval. 
It  was  sufficient  if  he  knew  of  the  Grail  and  the  Fisher  King.25 
Just  as  romances  relating  the  adventures  of  a  mature  hero  in  the 
Middle  Ages  awakened  curiosity  about  his  early  history,  and  so 
stimulated  the  poets  to  the  production  of  narratives  concerning  his 
youthful  exploits  (enfances),  so  it  may  well  have  been  in  regard  to 
the  Grail.  Chretien's  Perceval  had,  undoubtedly,  created  a  wide- 
spread interest  in  this  mysterious  vessel, 26  and  yet,  being  unfinished, 
it  left  the  field  open  to  the  invention  of  other  poets  who  might 
handle  the  theme.  The  only  thing  which  his  poem  had  fixed  was 
that  the  Grail,  since  it  contained  the  host  (sacramental  wafer), 
was  the  vessel  so  used  in  the  eucharistic  ritual  —  the  ciborium, 
as  it  is  called.  But  in  the  Middle  Ages  there  was  not  a  clear 
distinction  in  form  nor  in  part  (from  doctrinal  motives)  even  in 
function  between  the  vessel  that  contained  the  wine  in  the  Eucha- 
rist and  the  one  that  contained  the  holy  wafer.27    The  latter,  as 


24  This  is  true,  too,  I  believe,  of  the  apparent  contradiction,  when 
it  is  said  in  Robert,  1.  3032,  that  none  of  the  Grail  people,  if  sinless, 
can  be  maimed,  although  in  Chretien  both  the  Grail  keeper  (Fisher 
King)  and  his  father  are  maimed. 

26  Newell,  who  also  believed  that  Robert  derived  the  suggestion 
for  his  poem  from  Chretien,  remarks,  Journal  of  American  Folk- 
Lore,  X,  225  (1897):  "He  may  have  been  acquainted  with  the  poem 
of  Chrestien  only  by  rumor,  and  have  had  no  distinct  idea,  either  of 
its  contents  or  of  Arthurian  history."  This,  however,  I  think,  is  going 
too  far. 

96  This  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the  continuations  of  Chretien's 
Perceval.  Newell,  ibid.,  220 f.  interprets,  also,  as  referring  to  Chretien's 
poem,  the  "meintes  paroles  contees,  ki  ne  sunt  pas  foles,"  which, 
according  to  Robert,  11.  3457 f.,  were  told  of  the  Good  Fisher  (Rich 
Fisher),  after  he  went  westward. 

27  Miss  Fisher  has  made  this  plain  in  her  The  Mystic  Vision 
in  the  Grail  Legend  and  in  the  Divine  Comedy,  pp.  58ff.  (New 
York,  1917). 

The  commixture  of  the  elements  (bread  and  wine)  in  the  Holy 
Communion  seems  universal  in  the  Eastern  Church  even  to-day.  Cp. 
Hastings's  Encyclopaedia  of  Religion  and  Ethics  under  Eastern 
Church. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  245 

well  as  the  former,  had  the  shape  of  a  cup,  as  it  still  has  in  the 
Catholic  Church  of  today,  and  it  was  also  not  infrequently  called 
the  "chalice"  (calix)  —  indeed,  down  into  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. As  to  function,  Durandus  (Guillaume  Durand,  Bishop  of 
Mendo),  the  leading  writer  of  the  twelfth  century  on  matters 
of  ritual,  expressly  directs  that  the  host  in  the  sacramental  ser- 
vice shall  be  broken  over  the  real  chalice,  (i.e.  the  chalice,  con- 
taining the  wine  which  typified  the  blood  of  Christ)  and  a  portion 
of  it  be  dropped  into  that  vessel,  "primo  ad  notandum  quod  Christi 
corpus  non  f  uit  sine  sanguine  nee  sanguis  sine  corpore.  Secundo 
ad  designandum  quod  unum  sacramentum  conficitur  ex  speciebus 
panis  et  vini.  Tertio,  corporis  et  sanguinis  post  trinum  crucis 
signum  permixtio  est  animae  ad  corpus  reditio." 28 

These  conditions  perhaps  help  to  explain  why  Robert  (11. 
395 ff.,  433ff.,  507ff.,  563 ff.)  identifies  the  Grail,  on  the  one 
hand,  with  the  dish  of  the  Last  Supper  (which  would  naturally 
correspond  with  the  ciborium)  and,  on  the  other,  with  the  chalice 
of  the  sacrament  (11.  907ff.). 

88  I  owe  the  reference  to  Miss  Fisher,  p.  58,  note  3.  I  quote 
from  the  edition  of  the  Rationale  Divinorum  Officiorum  which  was 
published  at  Naples  in  1859.  The  passage  will  be  found  at  p.  304 
of  that  edition,  Book  IV,  Ch.  51  (De  fractione  hostiae).  According 
to  this  quotation  and  other  evidence  which  Miss  Fisher  adduces,  as 
she  remarks,  "both  species  contain  the  whole  Christ."  Consequently, 
either  could  symbolize  Christ  and  either  of  the  containing  vessels 
indifferently  could  be  identified  with  the  Grail.  Cf.  her  remarks,  also, 
p.  62. 

A  similar  stress  on  the  unity  of  the  functions  of  the  two  elements 
of  the  sacrament  seems  to  me  intended  in  the  lines  which  Miss  Fisher 
quotes,  in  another  connection,  p.  75,  note  4,  from  Versus  de  Mysterio 
Missae,  Migne,  Patrologia  Latina}  vol.  171,  col.  1180,  especially, 
in  the  following: 

Oblati  panis  dextra  tenet  calicem 
In  cruce  pendentis  quoniam  latus  Omnipotentis 
Dextrum  sanguineam  vulnere  fudit  aquam. 
^Callicem"  here,   it  will  be  observed,  means  the  ciborium.     Even  the 
paten  (small  flat  dish  covering  the  chalice),  Miss  Fisher  (ibid.)  thinks, 
might  have  been  taken  as  the  symbolical  vessel  (the  Grail),  since,  at 
least,  in  the  earlier  periods  the  host  was  broken  over  it  and  Innocent 
III  identifies  it  with  the  dish  of  the  paschal  lamb. 


246  Evolution ,  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Having  once  conceived  the  idea  of  relating  the  early  history 
of  the  Grail,  which  he  recognized  as  identical  with  a  vessel  of  the 
eucharistic  ritual  in  Chretien,  he  would,  of  course,  turn  to  Bibli- 
cal and  legendary  materials  that  would  furnish  him  with  hints 
to  give  body  to  this  conception.  We  have  seen  what  these  materials 
were  and  how  he  has  used  them. 

As  regards  the  Merlin,  which  follows  upon  the  Joseph,  this 
is  mainly  drawn  from  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  or  Wace  —  or, 
possibly,  some  other  verse-chronicle  derived  from  Geoffrey  —  and 
shows  no  connection  with  Chretien.  In  the  Didot  and  Modena 
MSS.  a  Perceval  in  prose  follows  prose  renderings  of  Robert's  Jo- 
seph and  Merlin,  and,  if  it  were  really  the  work  of  Robert,  this 
would  show  that  he  used  Chretien;  but,  despite  the  contentions 
of  some  scholars,  we  shall  see  later  on29  that  the  work  is  not  his. 
So,  altogether,  Chretien  is  only  in  a  limited  sense  a  source 
of  Robert.  Besides,  Robert's  poem,  as  will  have  been  obvious 
from  the  analyses  given  above,  is  in  a  wholly  different  style  from 
Chretien's  Perceval.  Compared  with  the  latter,  the  style  is  home- 
ly, awkward  and  often  obscure,  without  colour  or  spirit.  As  re- 
gards the  incidents,  furthermore,  we  are  moving  here  in  the  atmo- 
sphere of  Christian  legend  (Joseph)  or  pseudo-chronicle  (Merlin), 
not  of  folk-tale  and  romance,  such  as  is  found  in  Chretien's  poem. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  an  investigation  of  Chretien's  sources  and 
endeavor  to  isolate,  as  far  as  we  can,  the  Grail  theme  from  the 
other  elements  which  he  may  have  chosen  to  interweave  with  it 
after  the  manner  which  had  distinguished  his  methods  of  com- 
position in  earlier  works. 

In  the  beginning  of  his  Perceval  Chretien  speaks  of  exerting 
himself  to  "put  in  rime  the  best  tale  .  .  .  that  was  ever  related  in 
a  royal  court"  ("a  rimoiier  le  meillor  conte  .  .  .  qui  soit  contez 
an  cort  real").  "That  is  the  story  of  the  Grail  of  which  the 
Count  gave  him  the  book."  At  first  blush,  it  would  seem,  then, 
that  he  was  merely  putting  into  verse  a  prose-romance  that  the 
Count  gave  him.  But  this  is  impossible,  for  there  were  no  prose- 
romances  so  early  as  this.    They  first  began  about  1200,  or  not 

M  Cp.  Part  IV,  below. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  247 

long  before.  Some  of  the  writers  of  romances,  it  is  true,  like  Hugh 
of  Rotelande  in  his  Ipomedon,  refer  to  Latin  books  as  their  sources, 
but  this  was  simply  a  trick  to  impart  an  air  of  authority  to 
their  works,  and  certainly  no  Latin  romances  from  this  early  time 
are  extant.  Indeed,  as  far  as  the  Grail  is  concerned,  Helinand 
of  Froidmont,  in  a  well-known  passage  written  early  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  declares  expressly  that  he  had  been  unable  to 
discover  any  Latin  version  of  the  Grail  story. 

Still  further,  the  other  productions  of  Chretien  afford  no  ex- 
ample of  his  merely  working  over  in  verse  some  tale  that  he  had 
before  him,  whether  in  prose  or  in  verse.  He  always  makes  up  his 
romances  by  combining  elements  drawn  from  different  sources. 
As  we  have  seen  before,  this  is  particularly  clear  in  the  case  of 
the  Cliges,  where  (as  in  the  Perceval)  he  similarly  declares  in  the 
opening  of  his  romance  that  he  had  found  the  story  in  a  book 
in  the  cathedral  library  at  Beauvais.  He  means  by  this  simply 
the  main  theme,  and  with  this  theme  he  unites  other  elements  at 
pleasure.    Now,  what  are  the  main  elements  of  the  Perceval? 

1.  The  Grail  motif,  to  which  the  motif  of  removing  a  spell 
by  putting  a  question  is  attached. 

2.  What  is  known  in  the  study  of  folk-tales  as  the  Great 
Fool  motif30  —  the  Great  Fool  (i.e.  rustic  or  simpleton,  who 
proves  himself  more  than  a  match  for  the  most  renowned  war- 
riors), in  this  instance,  being  identified  with  the  hero  of  the  Grail- 
Quest. 

3.  The  Arthurian  setting  of  the  whole. 

Through  this  last  element  the  Great  Fool,  who  is  also  the 
Grail-quester,  becomes  a  knight  of  Arthur's  court  and  is  brought 

80  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XLIV2,  145h\  (1917), 
cites  an  Icelandic  tale  as  parallel  to  that  of  Perceval.  We  have, 
however,  in  this  tale  six  "Great  Fools"  (brothers),  instead  of  one,  and, 
altogether,  I  do  not  think  that  the  parallel  in  question  throws  any 
new  light  on  the  subject.  Ibid.  pp.  183  ff.,  Brugger  disposes  effectively 
of  G.  B.  Wood's  theory,  "A  Reclassification  of  the  Perceval  Romances," 
PMLA,  XXVH  524ff.  (1912),  that  the  Perceval  story  is  merely  a 
combination  of  two  other  types  of  fairy-tales,  viz.  The  Fated  Prince 
and  The  Male  Cinderella. 


248  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

into  contrast  with  the  famous  knights  of  that  court — especially  with 
Gawain,  the  model  of  worldly  courtesy  and  prowess.  This  gives 
an  opportunity  for  variety,  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  Perce- 
val, as  far  as  Chretien  carried  it  out,  the  number  of  lines  given 
to  Gawain' s  adventures  is  not  so  very  much  smaller  than  the  number 
of  those  given  to  Perceval's. 

What,  then,  did  the  book  which  Chretien  refers  to  contain? 
Certainly,  the  Grail  motif  —  for  Chretien  expressly  terms  it  the 
Story  of  the  Grail.  But  how  about  the  two  remaining  motifs? 
If  we  trust  to  the  analogy  of  his  other  romances,  there  is  no  pro- 
bability that  these  additional  motifs  were  associated  with  the  Grail 
story  in  his  book.  That  analogy  would  suggest  to  us  that  he, 
himself,  was  the  first  to  combine  these  other  motifs  with  the  motif 
of  the  Grail.  As  far  as  the  Arthurian  setting  is  concerned,  this 
is  obvious  on  the  face  of  it.  In  making  Arthur's  court  the  centre 
from  which  the  action  radiates,  he  would  be  merely  doing  precisely 
the  same  thing  that  he  had  done  in  all  of  his  previous  romances  — 
notably,  in  the  Cliges,  where  no  one  has  ever  pretended  that  the 
story  had  any  connection  originally  with  Arthurian  tradition. 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  Wace  had  established  the  fame  of 
Arthur's  court,  and  in  his  Perceval,  as  in  his  other  romances, 
Chretien  was  simply  availing  himself  of  the  fame  of  that  court 
to  give  eclat  to  his  own  heroes  and  their  exploits.  There  can  be 
very  little  doubt  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  Great  Fool 
motif.  In  virtually  every  country  and  tribe  in  the  world  we  have 
these  stories  of  the  apparent  simpleton  or  rustic  who  is  able  to 
achieve  adventures  that  have  baffled  the  most  celebrated  warriors 
or  knights,  very  much  as  in  our  present-day  circuses  the  clown 
usually  turns  out  to  be  the  most  skilful  acrobat  of  all.  But  nowhere 
else  is  the  Great  Fool  the  hero  of  a  Grail  quest  —  so  that  the 
probabilities  are  that  Chretien  was  the  first  to  combine  the  two 
motifs.*1 


31 


In  his  review  of  Nutt's  Studies  on  the  Legend  of  the  Holy 
Grail  in  the  Gottingische  Gelehrte  Anzeigen  for  June  10,  1890, 
H.  Zimmer  says  (p.  520)  of  Cuchullin's  first  adventures  in  the  Old 
Irish  epic,  Tain  bo  Cualnge:  "Die  Aehnlichkeit  mit  Percevals  Jugend- 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  249 

Apart  from  these  general  considerations,  the  numerous  motifs 
which  Chretien  repeats  in  the  Perceval  from  his  previous  romances 
show  how  large  a  part  of  this  romance  is  due  to  his  invention  and 
not  to  his  source.32  Most  obvious  among  these  examples  of  repeat- 
ed motifs  is  the  role  that  Gawain  plays.  This  is  found  in  every 
one  of  the  author's  works  without  exception.  In  Geoffrey  of  Mon- 
mouth and  Wace  this  nephew  of  Arthur  figures  as  the  best  knight 
at  his  uncle's  court,  so  that  in  Chretien's  romances,  which  cele- 
brate the  exploits  of  other  heroes  —  Erec,  Cliges,  Yvain,  Lance- 
lot —  Gawain  always  plays  a  part  —  an  increasingly  important 
one  in  the  successive  romances.  In  the  Erec,  his  role  is  smaller, 
although  he  is  even  there  spoken  of  as  the  best  of  Arthur's  knights 
(11.  2288ff.).  In  the  Cliges  (11.  4916ff.)  and  Yvain  (11.  6106ff.) 
he  is  used  as  the  touchstone  of  the  hero's  prowess.  In  the  Lance- 
lot his  adventures  rival  those  of  Lancelot,  himself.  In  the  Per- 
ceval, we  have  him  filling  the  same  function  as  in  the  Lancelot 


geschichte  springt  in  die  Augen."  Cuchullin,  too,  is  brought  up  by 
his  mother  far  from  the  court  of  Conchobar  (his  uncle),  hears  of  the 
life  there,  and,  despite  his  mother's  warnings,  insists  on  going  to 
Conchobar  and  distinguishes  himself  at  once.  The  two  stories,  however, 
are  alike  only  in  the  general  motifs,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  they 
have  any  actual  historical  connection  with  one  another. 

In  his  article,  "The  Aryan  Expulsion-  and  Return -Formula," 
Folk -Lore  Record,  IV,  pp.  Iff.  (1881),  A.  Nutt  pointed  out  some 
general  resemblances  between  the  story  of  Perceval  in  the  Middle 
English  Sir  Perceval  of  Gales  and  the  Irish  Boyish  Exploits  of 
Finn.  In  "Sir  Perceval,  and  The  Boyish  Exploits  of  Finn.",  PMLA, 
XXXII,  598 ff.  (1917),  R.  B.  Pace  has  listed  systematically  the  points 
in  question,  but  they  amount  to  nothing,  even  if  we  allow  that  the 
English  poem  is  independent  of  Chretien.  The  Irish  tale  was  formerly 
assigned  by  scholars  to  the  fifteenth  century,  but  latterly  to  the  tenth 
(John  Macneill)  or  the  twelfth  (Kuno  Meyer). 

In  the  same  year  (1897)  a  comparison  between  the  story  of  the 
youthful  Perceval  and  Barlaam  and  Josaphat  was  made  independently 
by  W.  W.  Newell,  Journal  of  American  Folk- Lore,  X,  131,  and 
L.  Cledat,  Revue  de  Philologie  Frangaise  et  de  Litterature,  XI,  14, 
note.     Cledat,  however,  wisely  regarded  the  resemblance  as  accidental, 

32  Cp.  W.  Foerster's  list,  Kristian  von  Troyes:  W'orterbuch  zu 
seinen  samtlichen  Werken,  Introduction,  pp.  163ff. 


250  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

—  only  he  occupies  an  even  larger  place  here,  and  he  is  a  foil 
to  Perceval:  that  is  to  say,  he  is  the  type  of  the  perfection  of 
worldly  knighthood,  devoted  to  arms  and  ladies,  as  contrasted  with 
the  knight  who  has  a  mystic  function  to  perform. 

More  important,  however,  among  these  repeated  motifs  than 
the  role  of  Gawain  even  is  the  quest  motif.  Just  as  in  the  novels 
of  Le  Sage,  Fielding  and  Smollett,  the  author  starts  his  hero 
on  a  journey,  the  adventures  of  which  make  up  the  materials  of 
the  story,  so,  from  the  Erec  on,  a  quest  was  the  main  device  which 
Chretien  employed  for  the  development  of  his  romances.  In  the 
EreCy  we  have  first  the  search  for  the  strange  knight  with  the 
dwarf,  etc.  (2576ff.);  later  the  hero  sallies  forth  in  quest  of  ad- 
ventures, in  general,  to  re-establish  his  reputation  for  valour.  This 
last  motif  is  found  again  in  Yvain  (11.  2539ff.).  In  the  Lance- 
lot, Lancelot  and  Gawain  have  the  more  definite  purpose  of  re- 
scuing Guinevere  from  her  captor,  Meleagant.  In  Perceval  it  is 
again  an  indefinite  search  for  adventure,  although  one  incident 
of  this  quest  is  destined  to  assume  an  importance  above  all  the 
rest  —  namely,  the  visit  to  the  Grail  Castle.33 

Besides  the  two  points  just  discussed,  the  Perceval  posses- 
ses many  minor  features  in  common  with  Chretien's  earlier  poems 
which  considerations  of  space  prevent  us  from  enumerating  here.34 

Finally  as  another  indication  of  Chretien's  free  treatment  of 
his  theme  —  an  indication  that  he  is  not  merely  versifying  a 
story  that  lay  before  him  —  it  is  to  be  observed  that  he  plunges 
in  medias  res  here  with  his  narrative,  as  he  does  in  his  other  poems. 
He  does  not  begin  with  the  history  of  the  misfortunes  of  Per- 
ceval's mother  and  how  she  was  led  to  seek  refuge  in  the  forest. 
He  simply  speaks  of  her  as  the  widowed  lady,  takes  the  previous 

88  In  his  A  Study  of  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight,  p.  80 
(Harvard  University  Press,  1916),  G,  L.  Kittredge  calls  attention  to  a 
class  of  popular  tales  in  which  the  hero  can  only  escape  death  or 
disgrace  by  meeting  certain  tests,  but  "does  not  know  in  what  the 
tests  consist",  or,  perhaps  "does  not  know  there  is  any  test  at  all". 
He  puts  the  Grail  -  question  in  this  category.  This  feature  of  the 
Grail  story  is,  undoubtedly,  of  folk-lore  origin. 

34  Cp.  Foerster's  list,  just  cited. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  251 

history  of  his  hero  for  granted,  and  starts  off  at  once  with  this 
hero's  adventures. 

It  seems  plain  from  this  discussion,  therefore,  that  the  book 
which  Chretien  refers  to  merely  gave  him  the  conception  of  the 
Grail,  but  that  the  character  of  the  Grail  knight  and  the  conception 
of  the  quest  are  Chretien's  additions.  What  was  it  that  deter- 
mined him  in  the  choice  of  Perceval  as  the  Knight  of  the  Quest? 
Naturally,  the  hero  of  the  quest  had  to  be  an  Arthurian  knight. 
Apart  from  the  general  fame  of  Arthur,  this  was,  of  course,  a 
necessity  with  Chretien,  the  Arthurian  poet.  It  was  not  desir- 
able, however,  to  use  for  this  purpose  any  of  the  well-known  Ar- 
thurian knights.  Their  characters  would  not  have  suited  the  new 
theme  —  the  quest  of  a  holy,  mystic  vessel  —  but,  in  any  event,  in 
the  interests  of  novelty  a  new  knight  was  required.  Furthermore, 
in  the  interests  of  novelty  he  confers  on  this  new  knight  the 
character  of  the  hero  of  the  Great  Fool  tale.  In  the  chansons  de 
geste,  as  in  the  only  one  of  Chretien's  own  romances  where  he 
had  related  the  enfances  of  his  hero  —  viz.  Cliges  —  the  knight 
is  always  brought  up  in  the  familiar  environment  of  feudal  society. 
It  was  a  happy  thought  now  to  vary  the  theme  —  to  introduce 
a  hero  who,  though  of  noble  origin,  had  grown  up  in  the  wilder- 
ness, outside  of  the  conventional  life  of  the  noble  classes  of  the 
time,  and  whose  consequent  awkwardness  and  naivete  would  render 
his  prowess  only  the  more  piquant.  It  mattered  very  little  what 
name  was  given  him.  The  one,  actually  selected,  was  "Perceval 
li  Galois"  which  we  find  already  in  the  list  of  Arthurian  knights 
in  the  Erec  (1.  1526).  There  is  no  reason,  however,  to  think 
that  before  Chretien  any  definite  story  had  ever  been  attached 
to  his  name  any  more  than  to  that  of  Lancelot.  Indeed,  the 
name,  "Perceval"  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  French,  and  the  epithet, 
"li  Galois"  was  added,  merely  to  give  it  the  Arthurian  colouring.35 

85  The  fullest  discussion  of  the  name  "Perceval",  its  variants  in 
the  different  languages  and  the  derivations  which  have  been  proposed 
for  it,  is  to  be  found  in  W.  Hertz's  Parzival  von  Wolfram  von 
Eschenbach,  neu  bearbeitet,  pp.  490 ff.  It  is,  as  he  says,  an  "Imperativ- 
name"  ("Pierce  the  valley"  "Press  on  through  the  valley")  like  German 
"Springinsfeld."    We  have  a  parallel  formation  in  "Percehaie"  ("Pierce- 


252  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

From  the  Catalogue  of  the  Ships  in  the  Iliad  down,  the  epic  has 
always  delighted  in  such  lists  of  names,  and  the  immediate  model 
for  those  of  the  Erec  may  very  well  have  been  similar  lists  in  the 


hedge"),   the   name   given   to   a   son  of  Reynard   the  Fox  (E.  Martin, 
Le  Roman   de  Renart,    Supplement,    Strasbourg,    1887,    118).      The 
same   name    appears   in   the    eleventh    century   as   that   of   a  Norman 
(Radulf  Percehaie)  in  the  Doomsday  Book,  the  well-known  register  of 
English  landholders  which  William  the  Conqueror  had  prepared.     Cp. 
F.  Hildebrand:    "Uber   das  franzbsische  Sprachelement  im  Liber  Cen- 
sualis,"  Zs.  f  rom.  Ph.,  VIII,  341  (1884).     Ibid.,  II,  309  (1878), 
K.  Bartsch  had  already  cited  as  a  parallel,  "Perceforest,"  name  of  the 
hero  of  the  romance,  Perceforest  (fourteenth  century);  but  this  was,  no 
doubt,  a  mere  imitation  of  "Perceval."  Another  parallel  formation,  "Passe- 
lande",  is  cited  by  Golther,  Zs.  f  vergleichende  Litteraturgeschichte 
und  Renaissance-Litter atur,  Neue  Folge,  III.    Hertz  takes  the  name 
"Perceval,"  420  (1890)  (p.  493),  as  an  "Umdeutung"  of  Welsh  "Peredur," 
whilst  Wechssler  {Sage  vom  Gral,  p.  135)  and  J.  Loth  (Les  Mabinogion, 
I,  56,  2nd  ed.  Paris,  1913)  regard  it  as  substituted  for  "Peredur."   It  is 
much  more  likely,  however,  that  "Peredur"  (the  Welsh  tale  of  that  name, 
as  we  have    seen   elsewhere   being   a  mere    adaptation   of  the  French 
Conte  del  Graal)  is  substituted  for  Perceval."    This  very  substitution 
shows  that  "Perceval"  was  unknown  to  the  Welsh,  in  whose  records, 
for  the  rest,  the  name  does  not  occur.    Inasmuch  as  "Perceval,"  then, 
is  plainly  a  French  name,    one  cannot  feel  sure  that  the  epithet,   "li 
Gallois,"  which  Chretien  attaches  to  it  already  from  its  first  recorded 
occurrence  (Erec,  1.  1536),    is   not   an  invention  of  the  French   poet, 
who  desires  to   give   everything  in  his  poem  a  Celtic  coloring.    W.  W. 
Newell,  Journal  of  American  Folk-Lore,  X,  125  (1897),  interprets 
it  as  meaning    "rude  and  rustic,"  since  Welshmen    were  regarded  by 
the  Anglo-Normans  in  that  light  or  even  worse,  and   as  applied  here 
to  Perceval   with   reference   to   his  rusticity   at  the  beginning   of  the 
tale.    This  interpretation,  however,  is,  no  doubt,  erroneous.    The  name 
"Perceval,"  according  to  Foerster,  Chretien   Worterbuch,   p.  162*,  is 
Chretien's  own  invention;    according  to  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u. 
Litt,  XXXI2,   145,  note  32,  it  was  originally  an  epithet  which  later 
supplanted  the  hero's  real  name.     We  have  no  data  for  deciding  the 
question,    but   it   seems    to    me   most   likely   that   the   name   came   to 
Chretien   from    some   lost  French    tale   that  embodied   the  Great  Fool 
motif 

Hertz,  p.  483,  486,  cites  parallels  to  show  that  in  his  attire  and 
equipment  Chretien's  Perceval  was  a  genuine  Welsh  peasant  of  the 
day.     There  is  nothing,   however,   really  distinctive   about  the  details 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  253 

Celtic  tales  which  gave  their  first  impulse  to  the  Arthurian  ro- 
mances —  such  a  list,  for  example,  as  that  in  the  Welsh  tale, 
Kulhwch  and  Olwen,  or,  perhaps,  similar  lists  in  the  chansons  de 
geste  or  romances  of  antiquity. 

Chretien's  book  gave  him,  then,  merely  the  materials  for  his 
conception  of  the  Grail.  What  was  the  nature  of  this  book?  Did 
it  belong  to  the  literature  of  Christian  legend,  was  it  a  Celtic  tale, 
or  was  it  of  some  other  origin  still?  In  other  words,  what  was 
the  origin  of  the  conception  of  the  Holy  Grail?  There  are  three 
theories  on  the  subject:  1.  that  this  conception  originated  in  Chris- 
tian legend;  2.  that  it  was  originally  a  Celtic  conception  which 
has  been  imperfectly  Christianized  by  the  French  poets;  3.  that 
it  sprang  from  some  ritual  of  the  Vegetation  Spirit,  which  sur- 
vived the  fall  of  the  ancient  world  of  paganism  and  continued  down 
into  the  Middle  Ages.  The  first  two  theories  have  confronted 
each  other  for  seventy  years  or  more  —  the  third,  though  sug- 
gested by  Simrock  as  far  back  as  1842,  has  only  appeared  in  the 
field  as  a  formidable  rival  since  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century. 

In  discussing  this  question  of  the  origin  of  the  Grail,  natu- 
rally, the  first  step  to  take  is  to  consider  the  etymology  of  the 


in  question,  although  Chretien  (11.  1694,  1796)  speaks  of  the  lad's 
being  appareled  in  the  Welsh  manner. 

The  French  poets,  probably,  as  a  rule,  interpreted  "Perceval"  as 
made  up  of  "perce  +  val."  In  the  oft-quoted  passage  (cp.  Foerster's 
large  edition  of  Chretien's  Cliges,  p.  xx),  from  the  metrical  prologue 
to  a  prose  version  of  the  Vie  des  Peres,  where  the  author  warns  his 
readers  against  reading  romances,  he  uses  a  play  on  words:  "Laissiez 
Cliges  et  Perceval,  Qui  les  cuers  perce  et  trait  a  val."  So,  too, 
Wolfram  140,  15:  "der  nam  is  rente  enmitten  durch."  The  author 
of  the  prose  romance,  Perlesvaus,  likewise,  plays  (pp.  19,  87,  105) 
with  the  etymology  of  the  name.   This  had,  no  doubt,  become  traditional. 

On  French  names  formed  in  this  manner  (Brise-fer  etc.,),  which 
are  also  found  in  French  folktales,  cp.  E.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr. 
u.  Litt.y  XLIV8,  149,  note  9  (1917).  Ibid,  in  the  text  Brugger 
offers  speculations  as  to  when  the  name  Percevaus  became  attached 
to  the  hero  —  i.  e.  at  what  stage  in  the  development  of  the  Perceval 
tradition. 


254  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

word  itself  —  graal  or  great  (the  later  form),  as  it  is  written  in 
the  Old  French  —  grazal  in  Provencal.  According  to  some  philo- 
logists, it  is  derived  from  an  hypothetical  Low  Latin  word,  cra- 
taliSy  which,  in  turn,  was  a  derivative  of  Greek  crater  (bowl).  Ac- 
cording to  others,  it  is  derived  from  a  Low  Latin  *gradalis  or 
*  gradate,  which  is  actually  recorded  in  a  Spanish  will  as  early 
as  1010,  and,  again,  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century 
in  the  Chronicle  of  Helinand  of  Froidmont  in  the  passage  where 
he  alludes  to  the  Grail  romances.36  This  passage  is  a  famous 
one  in  many  ways  and  so  is  worth  translating  in  part.  Under  the 
years  717 — 719  Helinand  says:  "At  this  time  a  wonderful  vision 
was  shown  to  a  certain  hermit  by  an  angel  —  a  vision  concerning 
a  noble  decurion,  Joseph,  who  took  down  the  body  of  our 
Lord  from  the  cross,  and  concerning  the  bowl  or  dish  ("de  catino 
illo  vel  paropside")  in  which  the  Lord  supped  with  his  disciples, 
in  regard  to  which  a  history  which  is  called  the  Grail  has  been 
written  by  the  same  hermit.  [We  have  here  an  allusion  to  the 
Old  French  prose-romance,  called  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  or 
Grand  St.  Graal.  ]  The  Grail  [  Gradalis  autem  vel  gradate  ]  is  the 
French  name  for  a  broad  and  rather  deep  dish  in  which  precious 
viands  are  accustomed  to  be  set  before  the  rich  in  different  rows 
(gradatim),  one  piece  after  the  other  on  different  levels.  It  is 
also  called  by  the  vulgar  name  great,  because  it  is  grateful  and 
acceptable  to  the  person  who  eats  in  it,  both  on  account  of  the 
containing  vessel,  because,  perchance,  it  is  of  silver  or  some  other 
valuable  material,  and  on  account  of  the  contents  —  that  is,  the 
various  order  of  the  precious  viands." 

The  wild  etymological  guess  in  this  last  sentence  is  quite  in 
the  mediaeval  style  and  is  really  identical  with  the  one  which 
Robert  had  already  offered  on  the  subject.    At  the  present  day, 

36  W.  Golther,  it  is  true,  in  a  private  communication  (dated 
5  January,  1920)  which  I  have  received  from  him,  has  expressed  the 
opinion  that  this  passage  is  a  late  thirteenth  century  interpolation. 
He  acknowledges,  however,  that  he  has  "kerne  unmittelbaren  Beweise 
dafiir."  In  the  meanwhile,  until  such  proofs  are  adduced,  it  seems 
to  me  desirable  to  take  the  passage  as  genuine,  as  has  hitherto  been 
done  by  scholars  of  all  shades  of  opinion. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  255 

the  word  is  still  current  in  Provence  and  in  Southeastern  France, 
but  there  is  no  reason  why  in  the  Middle  Ages  its  use  may  not 
have  extended  to  Northern  France  —  where  Chretien,  for  instance, 
resided.  On  the  other  hand,  for  phonetic  reasons,  the  forms  graal 
and  great,  which  we  find  in  the  French  romances,  could  not  have 
been  drawn  from  the  French  of  Western  France  or  of  England. 
As  far  as  immediate  derivation,  then,  is  concerned,  the  word  is 
apparently  of  Latin  origin,  but  its  etymology  throws  no  light  on 
the  origin  of  the  legend.37 

If  only  Robert's  poem  were  involved,  there  could  be  no  doubt 
about  the  question:  the  Grail  there,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  vessel 
of  the  Last  Supper  which  was  also  used  to  catch  the  blood  of  the 
dead  Christ  in,  and  its  subsequent  history  grew  out  of  a  combi- 


37 


For  the  etymology  of  the  word  graal  (great)  see,  especially, 
Foerster,  Chretien  Worterbuch,  p.  174*  and  Nitze's  article,  "Concer- 
ning the  Word  Graal,  Great,"  Modern  Philology,  XIII,  681  ff. 
(1916).  In  the  latter  the  various  etymologies  that  have  been  proposed 
are  tested  critically.  The  etymon  suggested  by  Diez,  viz.  *cratalis, 
as  Nitze  concludes,  has  most  in  its  favor.  Helinand's  attempt  to  con- 
nect great  with  agreer  is  obviously  a  mere  guess,  and,  no  doubt,  as 
Baist  (quoted  by  Nitze)  surmises,  his  attempt  to  connect  gradalis  with 
gradatim  is  equally  valueless.  Nitze,  too,  is,  doubtless,  right  (p.  188) 
in  regarding  gradalis  as  a  mere  variant  of  *cratalis.  —  The  word 
is  still  in  use  in  parts  of  France  (south,  southeast)  —  also,  in  Por- 
tugal {gral  =  wooden  mortar).  For  the  Portuguese  cp.  A.  Bonilla  y 
San  Martin,  Las  leyendas  de  Wagner  en  la  literatura  espanol  a, 
p.  67  (Madrid,   1913). 

"Saint  Greal"  (Holy  Graii)  in  the  later  development  of  the  ro- 
mances (fifteenth  century),  owing  to  a  false  division  of  the  two  words, 
came  to  be  misunderstood  as  "Sang  Real"  —  i.  e.  "Blood  Royal," 
meaning  the  Blood  of  Christ,  which  the  Grail  was  supposed  to  contain. 
For  the  French,  cp.  Godefroi,  Complement,  under  Sang,  and  for  the 
English  the  New  English  Dictionary  under  Sangrail  and  Sang  royal. 
We  find  in  English  sometimes  the  spelling,  Sank(e)  royall. 

After  what  I  have  said  elsewhere  in  this  volume,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  for  me  to  add  that  I  do  not  admit,  with  Nitze,  the  existence 
of  a  Latin  book  on  the  Grail  to  which  Helinand,  Robert  de  Boron, 
and  the  respective  authors  of  the  Grand  St.  Graal  and  Perlesvaus 
may  have  had  access.  To  be  sure,  Nitze  seems  latterly  to  have  receded 
from  his  former  position  on  this  subject.    Cp.  MPh.,  XVII,  162 f.  (1919). 


256  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

nation  of  uncanonical  writings  with  certain  passages  in  the  Bible 
—  especially,  the  passage  in  St.  Matthew's  Gospel  that  describes 
the  Last  Supper.  According  to  Robert,  then,  the  Grail  is  of 
Christian  origin  and  its  wonder-working  powers  are  like  those 
that  were  ascribed  to  many  relics  in  the  Middle  Ages.  But  even 
in  Chretien  is  not  the  Grail  really  again  merely  a  Christian  relic? 
The  trouble  here  is  that  the  Perceval  is  unfinished.  Consequently, 
we  have  not  the  early  history  of  the  sacred  vessel  told.  That  was  re- 
served for  the  portion  which  was  never  composed.  All  that  Chretien 
actually  gives  us,  then,  is  the  account  of  the  procession  in  the  Grail- 
castle  (11.  4391  ff.).  The  Grail  is  borne  through  the  brightly 
illuminated  hall  where  Perceval  sits  at  the  table.  A  damsel,  splen- 
didly clad,  bears  the  vessel,  which  is  ornamented  with  jewels  and 
which  sends  forth  a  light  that  eclipses  the  lights  of  the  hall.  There 
follow  then  a  silver  platter  (paten)  and  the  lance.  The  Grail  is 
expressly  declared  to  be  a  holy  thing  in  the  passage  (I.  7793) 
where  it  is  said  that  the  Fisher  King  maintained  his  life  merely 
with  a  holy  wafer  in  the  Grail.  The  words  are  as  follows:  "Such 
a  holy  thing  is  the  Grail  and  so  completely  spiritual  that  for 
his  [  i.e.  the  Fisher  King'.  ]  life  nothing  more  is  necessary  than 
the  holy  wafer  which  comes  in  the  Grail."38    So  here,  too,   we 

8*  The  lines  (6384 ff.)  run  as  follows: 

D'une  seule  oiste  ce  savons 

Que  l'an  an  ce  graal  aporte 

Sa  vie  sostient  et  conforte: 

Tant  sainte  chose  est  li  graax 

Et  tant  par  est  espiritax 

Qu'a  sa  vie  plus  ne  sostient 

Que  T  oiste  qui  el  graal  vient. 
Oiste  here  is  Latin  hostia  =  host,  eucharist.  The  passage  leaves 
uo  doubt  that  in  Chretien's  conception  the  Grail  was  a  Christian  relic 
—  indeed,  for  my  own  part,  I  would  say  boldly,  the  plate  of  the 
eucharist.  Even  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX  *,  58 f. 
(1905),  XXXI2,  137  (1907)  and  Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Per- 
ceval, I,  154  (1906),  although  they  believe  that  the  Grail  is  of  non- 
Christian  origin,  acknowledge  that  in  Chretien  it  is  a  Christian  relic, 
and  the  former,  ibid.  XXXVI2,  187  (1910),  justly  criticises  Brown 
(PMLA,  XXV,  7)  and  Baist  {Parzival  una1  der  Gral,  p.  41)  for 
denying  this. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  257 

have  a  Christian  relic  and  the  whole  procession  seems  a  Christian 
ceremonial  —  the  procession  of  the  Eucharist.  The  lance  is  the 
lance  of  the  Roman  soldier  who  pierced  the  side  of  Christ  with 
his  spear  (St.  John,  XIX,  34),  and  for  whom  the  name  Longinus 
(from  the  Greek  A6yxn  =  spear)  was  invented  by  early  Christian 
legend.  The  Grail  being  the  dish  which  received  the  blood  that 
flowed  from  the  wound  made  by  that  spear,  it  was  natural  that 
Chretien  should  have  added  it  to  the  Grail  procession,  and,  in 
accordance  with  the  general  conception,39  made  the  blood  flow  down 
to  the  hand  of  the  bearer.  The  wounded  Rich  Fisher  who  is  sus- 
tained by  the  marvellous  food  contained  in  the  Grail  —  that  is, 
the  dish  of  the  Last  Supper  —  is  naturally  Christ.  Indeed,  the 
various  objects40  in  the  Grail  procession  all  figure  in  the  cere- 
monial of  the  Byzantine  mass,  and,  accordingly,  the  most  eminent 
advocates  of  the  Christian  origin  of  the  Grail,  adopting  a  sug- 
gestion of  Konrad  Burdach's,41  have  latterly  been  inclined  to  take 


39  Cp.  R.  J.  Peebles,  The  Legend  of  Longinus,  Bryn  Mawr 
College  Monographs.     Monograph  Series,  IX,   1 8 5  f f .  (1911). 

40  One  of  these  objects,  the  tailleor  d' argent  (1.  3193),  which 
a  girl  bore  after  the  Grail,  no  doubt  represented  the  paten.  It  was 
misunderstood  by  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  who  translated  it  wrongly 
by  messer  (knife),  though  it  means  platter.  It  was  comparatively  in- 
significant in  the  Grail  procession,  and  so  does  not  appear  at  all  in 
Pseudo-Wauchier  and  Wauchier,  nor  in  the  narrative  of  the  Grail  castle 
episode  in  Gerbert,  although  he  mentions  it  at  another  point  (Potvin, 
VI,  177,  243).  Manessier,  however,  restored  it  (11.  44  700,  45  243ff.) 
to  a  place  among  the  talismans  of  the  Grail  procession.  He  borrowed 
it,  of  course,  from  Chretien. 

41  See  especially  Deutsche  Liter  atur zeitung ,  XXIV,  cols.  305 Off. 
(Dec.  12,   1903).     Tho  article   is   a  review   of   Willy   Staerck's    Uber 
den   Ursprung  der  Grallegende  (Tubingen,   1903),  but  presents  new 
views  as  to  the  origin  of  the  Grail  legend.    Burdach  had  already  given 
some  indications  of   his  theory  in   the  Archiv  filr   das  Studium  der 
neueren  Sprachen,  vol.  108,  p.  31  (1902),    and  in  the    article  men- 
tioned above,  he  speaks  of  having  in  preparation  a  comprehensive  work 
on  the  origin  of  the  Grail,  but  up  to  date  no  such  work  has  appeared. 
—  Heinzel,  p.  9,    had  noted  the   use  of  the   spear    in  the  Byzantine 
mass,  but  did  not  draw  the  same  inference  therefrom  as  Burdach.    So, 
too,  Paulus  Cassel,  Der  Gral  und  sein  Name,  p.  10  (second  edition 


258  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

this  as  the  model  of  Chretien's  procession.  There  was,  as  we  know, 
constant  intercourse  between  Constantinople  and  the  West  in  the 
twelfth  century  —  especially  owing  to  the  conditions  which  the 
crusades  produced — and  Chretien's  source  may  well  have  contained  a 
description  of  the  Byzantine  mass  which  some  crusader  had  brought 
home.  In  this  form  of  the  mass,  along  with  the  candles  and,  of 
course,  the  chalice  and  the  paten,  appears  the  lance  which  is  used 
to  pierce  the  bread  with.  To  be  sure,  this  lance  has  been  reduced 
now  to  the  form  of  a  knife  with  a  lance-like  blade,  but  it  retains 
its  original  name  of  the  lance  (Xdyxi)-  Moreover,  in  the  allegorical 
interpretation  of  the  objects  that  figure  in  the  mass  which  we 
find  in  writers  of  the  Eastern  Church  we  have  it  expressly  identi- 


Berlin  1878),  identifies  Wolfram's  Messer  with  the  hagia  logche  of  the 
Byzantine  mass.  Throughout  this  little  book  (28  pages)  Cassel  con- 
stantly appeals  to  the  rites  of  the  Greek  church  for  analogies  to  the 
Grail  rites. 

It  is  from  Christian  liturgy  —  more  specifically,  of  the  Eastern 
Church  —  and  not  from  Christian  legend,  according  to  Burdach,  that 
the  Grail  legend  sprang.  He  thinks  that  it  assumed  literary  form 
during  the  period  of  the  Crusades  in  Provence  or  nearby.  There  is 
no  evidence,  however,  to  support  this  view.  As  Burdach  points  out, 
in  the  Byzantine  mass  which  goes  under  the  name  of  St.  John  Chry- 
sostom,  in  the  Introitus  the  lance  gives  the  symbolical  wound  in  the 
eucharistic  bread;  it  is  borne  about  with  the  cup  and  the  paten;  it 
is  present  at  the  symbolical  entombment;  and  in  the  consecration  and 
"conversion"  of  the  bread  it  is  used  again  to  heal  and  resurrect. 

The  Greek  text  of  the  liturgy  of  Chrysostom  is  accessible  in 
C.  A.  Swainson's  The  Greek  Liturgies,  101  ff.  (Cambridge,  1884).  Cp. 
especially,  pp.  104ff.  A  picture  of  the  lance  (holy  spear)  will  be  found 
in  J.  M.  Neale's  History  of  the  Holy  Eastern  Church,  I,  342  (Lon- 
don, 1850).  It  is  hardly  a  knife,  but  merely  a  shortened  spear,  with 
a  cross-piece  on  the  handle  to  suggest  a  crucifix. 

Burdach  sees  a  similarity  between  the  scenes  in  the  hall  of  the 
Grail  Castle  in  the  romances  and  the  adoration  of  the  holy  spear  des- 
cribed by  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus,  Migne,  Patrologia  Graeca, 
vol.  112,  col.  421,  as  taking  place  in  Constantinople.  But  the  ceremony 
in  the  latter  case  is,  evidently,  in  a  church,  and  the  lance  is  a  definite 
relic  which  was  regarded  as  the  actual  spear  with  which  Christ's 
side  was  pierced. 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  259 

fied  with  the  spear  of  the  Roman  soldier  and  interpreted  accord- 
ingly.*2 

It  has  been  objected,  however,  to  the  theory  of  the  Eucha- 
ristic  origin  of  Chretien's  Grail  procession  that  it  takes  place  in 
a  castle  and  not  in  a  church  —  moreover,  that  the  bearer  of  the 
Grail  is  a  damsel,  not  a  priest.  Such  things,  it  is  argued,  would 
have  seemed  blasphemous  to  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  highest  degree. 
On  the  other  hand,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  such  processions  are  not 
confined  in  Catholic  countries  to  the  churches  —  and,  besides, 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  we  are  dealing  with  poetry  and  not 
with  a  theological  work.  Chretien  is  fitting  a  religious  concep- 
tion into  a  romance  of  chivalrous  adventure.  The  general  tone 
of  his  works  is  thoroughly  mundane,  and  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  that  he  would  have  shrunk  from  making  use  of  a  Christian 
theme  in  the  manner  that  we  find  the  Grail  used  in  the  Perceval. 
As  regards  the  second  point,  it  was,  of  course,  irregular  in  Western 
Europe  for  a  woman  to  bear  the  eucharist,  but  it  was  allowed  in 
the  East  and  the  custom  was  brought  thence  to  Ireland  and  Brit- 
tany.43 A  ninth  century  instance  in  the  reign  of  Louis  the  Pious 
has  also  been  cited.4*  It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  this  fea- 
ture of  Chretien's  Grail  procession  was  derived  directly  from  some 
such  heterodox  usage.45  That  may  have  been  the  case,  but,  in 
any  event,  the  fact  that  such  usages  are  recorded  sporadically  in 
the  Middle  Ages  proves  that  the  conception  of  a  girl  bearing  the 

42  Cp.,  for  example,  the  Greek  treatise  attributed  to  Germanos 
which  I  have  quoted  above.  Ibid.,  397,  A — C,  we  find  the  "lance' 
of  the  mass,  the  plate  (diskos)  that  contained  the  corpus  domini 
and  the  chalice  that  contained  the  wine,  all  explained  in  this  succession' 
one  immediately  after  the  other.  The  "lance"  is  said  to  represent 
"the  spear  that  pierced  the  side  of  the  Lord,"  and  "to  be  purified  by 
the  lance  means  [the  same  thing  as]  'As  a  sheep  he  was  led  to  the 
slaughter'"  etc. 

Heinzel,  pp.  9f.,  cites  from  Martene,  De  antiquis  ritibus,  IV, 
443,  the  description  of  a  procession  of  a  Western  church  (Fleury-sur- 
Loire)  in  which  the  lance  also  figures. 

48  Cp.  Miss  Peebles,  p.  209. 

44  By  B.  Fehr,  Beiblatt  zu  Anglia,  XXIV,  295  (1913). 

45  So  Miss  Peebles,  loc.  tit. 


260  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

eucharist  was  not  out  of  the  question  for  a  mediaeval  writer  — 
especially,  for  the  author  of  such  fantastic  compositions  as  the 
Arthurian  romances.  This  adaptation  of  sacred  materials  to  the 
purposes  of  romance  would  not  be  more  profane  than  similar  adap- 
tations which  we  find  in  the  prose  romances.  For  example,  we 
have  in  the  prose  Lancelot  the  conception  of  Christ,  the  most 
sacred  of  all  subjects,  parodied  in  the  account  of  Galahad's  con- 
ception, and  in  the  Queste  and  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  the  same 
knight  is  supplied  with  ancestors  taken  from  the  genealogy  of 
Christ.46  If  the  identifications  which  we  have  adopted  are  correct, 
viz.,  of  the  lance  of  the  Grail  procession  with  the  lance  which 
was  thrust  into  the  side  of  Christ  on  the  cross,  the  Grail  with  a 
vessel  of  the  eucharist  and  the  tailleor  (platter)  with  the  paten, 
it  is  plain  that  the  Rich  Fisher  or  Fisher  King,  who  has  been 
wounded  through  both  thighs  by  a  dart  in  battle  and  who,  con- 
sequently, has  to  resort  to  fishing  in  a  boat  for  diversion  (11. 
347  Iff.)  is  the  crucified  Christ,  himself,  who  is  present  at  the 
eucharistic  celebration  (his  symbolical  feast). 

In  the  allegorical  exegesis  of  the  Middle  Ages  the  commen- 
tators regularly  interpret  the  scenes  in  the  Gospels  where  the  apost- 
les are  engaged  in  fishing  on  the  basis  of  Christ's  words  to  Peter 
and  Andrew,  St.  Mattheiu,  IV,  19,  when  he  summoned  them  from 
their  nets  to  become  his  disciples:  "Follow  me,  and  I  will  make 
you  fishers  of  men."  Accordingly,  the  fish  in  these  scenes  are 
men,  the  commentators  declare,  those  that  are  caught  by  the 
apostles  being  Christians  and  the  remainder  heathen.47  It  was  na- 
tural   that  the    epithet,    "fisher,"    in    this    allegorical    sense    of 


46  See,  respectively,  my  articles  in  ER,  IX,  368  f.  (1918)  and 
MLN,  XXXIII,  129ff.  (1918).  Miss  Fisher,  pp,  124f.,  cites  in  this 
connection  the  procession  of  the  hermits  in  the  Perlesvaus,  who  mar- 
ched into  the  hall  in  white  garments  with  a  red  cross  on  their  breasts 
and  then  "annorerent  Deu  nostre  Seingnor  et  batirent  lor  coupes,"  as 
if  they  were  before  an  altar.  The  romancer,  she  observes,  had  no 
feeling  of  irreverence  here. 

47  On  this  subject,  cp.  Hans  Achelis:  Das  Symbol  des  Fisches 
und  die  Fischdenkmdler  der  romischen  Katakombeny  p.  8  (Mar- 
burg, 1888). 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  261 

"one  who  saves  the  souls  of  men"  should  be  applied  not  only 
to  the  apostles,  but  to  Christ,  the  Saviour,  par  eminence.  And 
so  we  actually  find  Christ  called  the  Fisher  by  Early  Christian 
Fathers  —  especially,  it  would  seem,  in  the  East.48  Far  more 
common,  it  is  true,  is  the  symbolization  of  Christ  under  the  image 
of  a  fish,49  which  persists  even  today,  as  the  fish  symbols  that 
often  appear  in  the  decoration  of  our  churches  still  testify.  This 
latter  piece  of  symbolism  would  always  render  a  transition  to 
the  related  conception  of  Our  Lord  as  the  "Fisherman"  easy, 
and,  doubtless,  we  have  such  a  shifting  of  the  conception  in  the 
Fisher  King  of  Chretien.  Doubtless,  it  was  a  fancy  of  Chretien's 
that  this  Fisher  King  who  was  lame  should  be  represented  as 
seeking  diversion  in  fishing.50 

The  father,  or  "double,"  of  the  Fisher  King  in  Chretien's 
poem,  the  mysterious  king  who  is  likewise  lame  and  who  has  not 


*8  Cp.  Achelis,  ibid.,  pp.  8f.  He  cites  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
Gregory  of  Nazianzene  and  Nilus.  Jerome,  however,  remarks  (to 
Habakkuk,  I,   15)  that  the  Devil  and  heretics  can  also  be  fishermen. 

49  For  numerous  examples  of  this  from  the  early  Christian  era 
down  see  J.  B.  Pitra,  Spicelegium  Solesmense,  III,  522 ff.  (Paris,  1855). 
This  was  due,  in  part,  to  the  fact  that  the  initials  of  the  Greek  words, 
In<7o0s  Xpicrrds  0eou  uids  aumjp  (=  Jesus  Christ,  Son  of  God,  the 
Saviour),  make  up  ixOus  (=  fish),  in  part,  perhaps,  to  the  place 
filled  by  the  fish  in  earlier  Asiatic  religions.  On  the  subject  of  the 
fish  in  these  religions  see  Miss  Weston's  From  Ritual  to  Romance, 
ch.  9  (Cambridge,  1920),  where,  in  the  notes,  the  authorities  on  the 
question  are  cited. 

60  This  is  suggested  by  Heinzel  who  says  (p.  13)  that  we  must 
assume  "Crestien  oder  seine  Quelle  .  .  .  habe  entweder,  da  er  den 
Namen  riche  pecheur  nicht  verstand,  wohl  aber  von  der  Krankheit 
dieses  Mannes  wusste,  die  Tatigkeit  des  Fischens  aus  freier  Erfindung 
mit  der  Krankheit  in  ursachlichen  Zusammenhang  gebracht  —  oder  die 
Vorstellung  von  der  Krankheit  des  Fischerkbnigs  aus  dem  unver- 
standenen  Ausdruck  roi  pecheur  abgeleitet.  Er  ist  ein  Fischerkonig, 
weil  er  fischt,  und  er  fischt  weil  er  krank  ist."  The  first  of  these 
alternative  suggestions,  however,  seems  to  me  preferable.  The  wounds 
which  Jesus  suffered  on  the  cross  would  account  for  the  conception 
of  his  representative  in  the  legend  as  maimed  or  sick.  It  is  the  fishing 
activities  of  the  character  that  require  explanation. 


262  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

left  his  room  for  fifteen  years,  being  sustained  exclusively  by  the 
holy  wafer,  would,  under  this  interpretation,  be  the  Holy  Ghost.51 

It  is  most  convenient  to  discuss  in  connection  with  the  origin 
of  the  Grail  legend  the  theory  which  has  been  often  advanced 
that  this  legend  first  took  shape  in  Glastonbury  Abbey  (in  Eng- 
land). The  only  item  of  evidence  that  might  furnish  an  argu- 
ment for  such  a  notion  is  a  passage  in  William  of  Malmesbury's 
De  Antiquitate  Glastoniensis  Ecclesiae,  where  it  is  said  that  the 
apostle  Philip  "duodecim  ex  suis  discipulis  .  .  .  misit  in  Britan- 
niam,  quibus,  ut  ferunt,  charissimum  amicum  suum  Joseph  ab 
Aramathia,  qui  et  Dominum  sepulivit,  praefecit."52 

With  regard  to  this  passage,  it  should  be  observed  that  the 
story  of  St.  Philip's  having  founded  Christianity  in  Britain  was 
virtually  an  invention  of  William's,  who  was  desirous  of  establish- 
ing for  the  English  a  direct  apostolic  origin  and  a  consequent 
independence  of  Rome.  The  desired  result  he  achieved  by  drawr 
ing  a  convenient  inference  from  a  statement  in  the  ninth  century 
chronicle  of  Freculf ,  that  St.  Philip  had  converted  the  Gauls  and 
neighboring  peoples,  and  combining  it  with  a  fiction  of  Geoffrey 
of  Monmouth's  concerning  the  conversion  of  Britain.53  Even  if 
the  allusion  to  Joseph  in  the  above-quoted  passage  was  really 
inserted  by  William  of  Malmesbury,  himself,  it  would  not  prove 
the  existence  of  any  legend  that  would  connect  Joseph  with  Glas- 
tonbury. As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  there  is  the  strongest 
reason  for  believing  that  the  words  are  a  late  interpolation,  made 
under  the  influence  of  the  French  Grail  romances,  which  had  ren- 
dered Joseph,  as  a  converter  of  the  heathen,  famous.    William 


81  The  character,  which  is  as  difficult  to  interpret  under  one 
theory  of  Grail  origins  as  another,  may  have  sprung,  after  all,  from 
some  misunderstanding  of  his  original,  on  Chretien's  part.  In  any  event, 
it  is  not  fundamental  in  the  Grail  story,  as  is  shown  by  the  circum- 
stance that  it  was  dropped  by  all  the  continuators  of  Chretien's 
Perceval. 

62  Migne's  Patrologia  Latina,  vol.  179,  col.  1683  (Paris,  1855). 

63  This  has  been  proved  clearly  by  F.  Zarncke,  PBB,  III,  327  ff. 
(1876). 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  263 

nowhere  else  mentions  him  and  he  does  not  fit  in  with  the  account 
of  the  conversion  of  Britain  which  this  writer  gives.  According 
to  his  narrative  elsewhere,  it  is  twelve  of  St.  Philip's  disciples 
that  effect  the  conversion.  The  theory  of  interpolation  is  strength- 
med  by  the  fact  that  there  was  no  Grail  legend  among  the  local 
legends  of  Glastonbury.  Only  the  late  prose-romance,  Perlesvaus, 
pretended  to  be  based  on  a  Latin  book  at  Glastonbury.54    There 


64 


When  W.  A.  Nitze  wrote  his  "Glastonbury  and  the  Holy  Grail", 
Modern  Philology,  I,  247 ff.,  he  believed  in  the  Latin  book  to  which 
the  author  of  the  Perlesvaus,  Potvin,  I,  306,  348,  appeals  as  his 
authority,  but  recently,  in  Studies  in  Philology,  XV,  12,  note  12 
(University  of  North  Carolina,  1918),  he  appears  to  renounce  this  idea. 
G.  Baist,  however,  supposes  this  hypothetical  Latin  book  to  have  been 
written  by  a  Glastonbury  monk,  about  the  time  of  the  pretended  dis- 
covery (in  1191)  there  of  Arthur's  and  Guinevere's  bodies,  and  it  is 
the  cornerstone,  so  to  speak,  of  his  theory  of  the  evolution  of  Grail 
conceptions.  Through  this  book  (written  after  Chretien),  as  Baist  thinks, 
the  stories  of  Perceval  and  Joseph  of  Arimathea  were  woven  together 
for  the  first  time.  Robert  de  Boron  wrote  his  Joseph  (later)  as  a 
VorgescJtichte  to  this  liber  Glastoniensis,  and  the  other  writers  con- 
cerning the  Grail,  also,  drew  their  matter  partly  from  the  hypothetical 
Latin  romance  and  partly  from  Chretien.  For  these  views  of  Baist, 
cp.  Literaturblatt,  XIII,  col.  160  (1892),  "Zu  Robert  de  Boron,"  Zs. 
f.  ram.  Ph.,  XXXII,  231  (1908),  and  Parzival  und  der  Gral,  p.  39, 
(Freiburg  in  Br.,  1909).  In  none  of  these  places  (or  anywhere  else), 
however,  has  the  author  supported  his  views  by  evidence.  There  is, 
in  fact,  every  reason  for  rejecting  the  hypothesis.  In  the  last-named 
reference  Baist  assumes  that  the  legend  about  the  founding  of  Glaston- 
bury abbey  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea  was  a  genuine  early  tradition  at 
Glastonbury,  but  Newell,  as  we  shall  see,  has  proved  that  this  is  not 
so.  The  Latin  book,  moreover,  (written,  it  is  declared,  by  Josephus) 
which  the  author  of  the  Perlesvaus  invokes  as  his  source,  it  is  safe 
to  say,  never  existed.  The  only  Arthurian  romances  in  Latin  that 
we  know  of  —  the  Historia  Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii  — 
are  not  earlier  than  the  second  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Se6 
my  edition  of  these  romances,  pp.  XVI ff.  Arthur  and  Gorlagon, 
edited  by  Kittredge  from  the  unique  MS.,  Rawlinson  B  149  (end  of 
the  fourteenth  century,  at  the  earliest),  is  merely  a  Welsh  folk-tale  in 
Latin  dress,  but  we  have  no  ground  for  dating  that  (in  its  Latin  form), 
either,  earlier  than  the  two  romances  I  have  named.  —  Still  further, 
it  is,   in  the    highest   degree,    questionable   whether  Robert   de  Boron 


264  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

was  an  attempt  to  connect  the  abbey  with  Arthur,  but  this  wa6 
separate  from  the  Grail  legend,  and,  likewise,  of  late  origin.  The 
motive  for  this  attempt  was  political:  On  the  one  hand,  the  monks 
had  no  objection  to  their  abbey  being  glorified  by  being  con- 
nected with  so  renowned  a  hero  as  Arthur,  and,  on  the  other,  the 
early  Plantagenets  were  anxious  to  obtain  a  hold  on  the  Celtic 
population.  Consequently,  Glastonbury  was  identified  with  Avalon, 
the  place  to  which  Arthur  was  reported  to  have  been  taken  after 
receiving  his  fatal  wound.  Avalon  was,  of  course,  an  island,  and 
Glastonbury  was  not  —  but  this  discrepancy  was  explained  on  the 
ground  that  marshes  lay  about  the  place,  so  that,  after  all,  it 
might  be  called  an  island.  A  comedy  was  then  arranged  in  the 
year  1191,  when  it  was  announced  that  the  tombs  of  Arthur  and 
Guinevere  had  been  discovered  at  the  abbey.  The  supposed  coffins 
were  dug  up  and  then  reinterred  before  the  altar  in  the  church  in 
solemn  fashion.  This  pious  fraud  had  the  effect  of  weakening  the 
inconvenient  Celtic  tradition  that  Arthur  would  one  day  return 
to  rule  over  his  people  and  of  fixing  on  English  soil  the  most 
precious  relic  of  the  Celtic  race.  Accounts  of  the  transaction  are  given 
by  Giraldus  Cambrensis  in  two  of  his  works,  Speculum  Ecclesiae, 
II,   8 — 10,  and  De  Principis  Instructione,  I.55    The  fraudulent 

ever  intended  to  introduce  Perceval  into  the  cycle  of  romances  which 
he  outlines  at  the  end  of  the  Joseph.  On  this  subject  and  the  author- 
ship of  the  Didot  Perceval  see,  Part  IV,  below. 

In  this  connection  I  will  say  that,  whatever  one  may  think  in 
regard  to  the  Woliram-Kyot  question,  Nutt  is  undoubtedly  right  when, 
in  reviewing  Baist's  Parzival  und  der  Gral,  in  his  article,  "Recent 
Grail  Literature,"  in  The  Academy  for  May  7,  1910,  he  condemns 
(p.  446)  the  view  to  which  the  author  inclines  and  which  is,  indeed, 
the  inevitable  conclusion  of  his  preceding  criticism  of  the  respective 
theories  of  Christian  and  heathen  origin  of  the  Grail  —  the  view  which 
is  summed  up  in  his  words  (p.  43);  "dass  der  Gral  in  seiner  ersten 
Gestalt  ohne  jede  wunderbare  Eigenschaft  war  und  nur  die  Regel 
exemplifizieren  half,  dass  unter  Umstanden  auch  Reden  Gold  sei."  That 
the  whole  Grail  story  should  be  as  meaningless  as  this  is  impossible. 

68  There  is  a  mediaeval  Welsh  version  of  the  transaction  based 
primarily  on  the  Speculum  Ecclesiae,  but  with  some  sentences  taken 
from  the  De  Principis  Instructione.  The  text  has  been  edited  with 
translation   and    notes    by  Timothy  Lewis  and  J.  D.  Bruce,  "The  Pre- 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  265 

tradition  which  was  thus  started  was  buttressed  still  further  by 
the  falsification  of  William  of  Malmesbury's  treatise  on  the  anti- 
quity of  the  Glastonbury  abbey  —  De  Antiquitate  Ecclesiae  Glas- 
toniensis.  This  treatise,  composed  in  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth 
century,  did  not  originally  contain  the  passages  which  in  the  exist- 
ing text  connect  Glastonbury  with  Arthur.  These  passages  were 
interpolated  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  or  beginning  of  the  thirteenth 
century  as  a  part  of  the  fraud  which  the  monks  of  Glastonbury 
were  then  engaged  in  foisting  upon  the  world.56    The  forging  of 

tended  Exhumation  of  Arthur  and  Guinevere",  Revue  Celtique,  XXXIII, 
432  ff.  (1912).  The  Welsh  preserves  a  few  sentences  which  have  been 
lost  in  the  unique  (defective)  MS.  of  the  Speculum. 

60  In  Germania,  XII,    276ff.  (1867),    A.  Holtzmann   maintained 
that   the   Arthurian    passages    in   the   De   Antiquitate    Glastoniensis 
Ecclesiae  (composed  between  1125  and  1139)  of  William  of  Malmes- 
bury  were  late  interpolations   and  drawn   from  Geoffrey   of  Monmouth 
and  the  French  romances,  and  this  was  the  view  of  F.  Zarncke  in  his 
"Zur  Geschichte  der  Gralsage,"  PBB,  HI,  331  ff.  (1876),  with  reference 
to  the   passage   about   Joseph    of  Arimathea.     G.  Baist,    however,  in 
"Arthur  und  der  Graal,"  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XIX,  326ff.  (1895),  with 
supplement,  XX,  320 f.   (1896),  presented  an  elaborate   defense  of  the 
authenticity  of  these  passages,  which  seemed  convincing   to  G.  Paris, 
Romania,  XXIV,  611  (1895).    Baist  admitted  (pp.  328f.)  that  the  work 
contained  interpolations,  but  denied  that  these  Arthuriana  belonged  in 
that   category.     F.  Lot,    in  his   article  "Glastonbury  et  Avalon,"  Ro- 
mania, XXVII,  529 ff.  (1898),   also   accepted  the  Arthurian   passages 
as  genuine  and  believed  (pp.  567 ff.)  that  they  were  invented  by  Ca- 
radoc  of  Llancarvan,  author  of  a   Vita  Gildae,  which  is  likewise  full 
of  fabrications,  and  that  they  were  communicated  by  him  to  William 
of  Malmesbury,  who  adopted  them  without  suspicion.    W.  W.  Newell, 
however,  in  "William  of  Malmesbury  on  the  Antiquity  of  Glastonbury," 
PMLA,  XVIII,    459  ff.  (1903),    subjected    the    whole   question   to   re- 
examination,   and   proved  conclusively  that   the  Arthuriana  in  the  De 
Antiquitate  were    certainly  late   interpolations.     F.  Lot   has  accepted 
Newell's   results   in   his   Melanges    d'Histoire   Bretonne,    pp.  277  ff. 
(1907).    So,  too,  Nitze,  it  would  seem,  in  "The  Glastonbury  Passages 
in   the   Perlesvaus,"  Studies   in  Philology,    XV,  7ff.  (University   of 
North  Carolina,  1918),    who   in  a   previous   article,  "Glastonbury  and 
the  Holy  Grail,"  I,    254 ff.,  had   assumed   the   authenticity  of  the  Ar- 
thurian   materials   in   the  De   Antiquitate.     In   a   communication    to 
Nitze,  summarized  by  the  latter  in  Modern  Philology,  I,  248,  note  2, 


266  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

documents  for  the  purpose  of  securing  wealth  or  prestige  for  a 
monastery  was  one  of  the  most  ordinary  transactions  of  the  Middle 
Ages  —  and  there  is  no  occasion  for  surprise  at  these  so-called 
pious  frauds  of  religious  men,  when  it  is  remembered  that  the 
Papacy  itself  had  set  an  example  to  the  whole  church  by  making 
the  forged  Constitutions  of  Constantine,  as  they  are  called,  the 
basis  of  its  claims  to  the  possession  of  the  Papal  States. 

The  whole  connection  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  with  Glaston- 
bury, then,  is  a  late  invention  —  a  localization  which  may  be  com- 
pared with  the  localization  of  the  Tristan  romance  at  Dublin  as" 
early  as  the  twelfth  century,57  only  that  in  the  latter  case  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  any  fraudulent  purpose  was  involved  in 
the  localization.  The  identification  of  a  village  on  the  outskirts 
of  Dublin  with  the  site  of  a  chapel  of  Iseult  —  the  village  is 
still  called  "Chapelizod"  —  was,  doubtless,  simply  the  fancy  of 
some  high-born  lover  of  the  old  romance.  As  regards  the  connection 
of  Joseph,  and  hence  of  the  Grail,  with  Glastonbury,  none  of  the 
earfy  romancers  know  anything  of  it.  In  Chretien's  Perceval,  of 
course,  neither  Joseph  nor  Glastonbury  appear.  In  Robert  de 
Boron,  Joseph  never  comes  to  Britain,  and  he  is  consequently  never 
brought  into  any  sort  of  relations  either  with  Arthur  or  with 
Glastonbury.  Indeed,  the  only  allusion  in  this  poem  to  anything  in 
Arthurian  tradition  is  where  it  is  said  that  Bron,  the  second 
guardian  of  the  Grail  is  to  go  to  the  West  (1.  3219),  or,  more 
specifically,  the  "vaus  d'Avaron"  (3123,  3221)  —  i.e.  the  vale  of 
Avalon.  But  in  the  interpolated  treatise  of  William  of  Malmcsbury 
(De  Antiquitate)  Glastonbury  is  called  "insula  Avallonia"  (in 
the  British  language  it  was  called,  it  is  said,  Yniswitrin  —  i.e. 


Baist  called  attention  to  a  passage  in  Johannes  Glastoniensis  (fifteenth 
century)  which  is  supposed  to  prove  the  existence  of  early  Arthurian 
traditions  at  Glastonbury,  but  the  passage  is  late  and  evidently  com- 
pounded from  details  in  the  chronicles  and  romances. 

R.  Thurneysen,  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XX,  316ff.  (1896),  "Zu  William 
von  Malmesbury",  pointed  out  some  important  Irish  sources  for  certain 
of  the  interpolations  in  the  De  Antiquitate,  but  they  do  not  affect  the 
question  with  which  this  note  is  concerned. 

Cp.   The  Athenaeum,  Feb.  21  and  April  26,  1913. 


67 


The  Theory  of  Christian  Origin  267 

"isle  of  glass").  It  has  been,  accordingly,  suggested  that  Robert's 
"vaus  d'Avaron"  reflects  the  influence  of  the  revised  De  Anti- 
quitate  and  that  the  term  is,  therefore,  intended  to  apply  to  Glas- 
tonbury.58 But,  apart  from  the  uncertainty  of  the  relative  dates 
of  the  two  works  —  Robert's  was  probably  written  in  the  eighties, 
whereas  the  revised  De  Antiquitate  in  all  likelihood  dates  after 
1191  —  the  terms  "vaus  d'Avaron"  and  "insula  Avallonia"  do 
not  coincide.  The  one  is  a  vale,  the  other  is  an  isle.  Very  likely, 
Robert  merely  used  Avalon  as  an  indefinite  expression  for  the 
West,  —  the  Avalon  of  Celtic  legend  being  indefinitely  placed  in 
the  Western  Seas.  If  he  refers  to  this  Otherworld  of  Celtic  belief 
as  a  vale,  instead  of  an  isle,  we  may  pardon  this  to  a  poet,  whether 
it  is  due  to  confusion  or  to  intentional  change.  In  any  event,  his 
words  do  not  offer  the  slightest  justification  for  assuming  that 
he  was  here  alluding  to  Glastonbury.59 

88  Cp.  Newell,  op.  cit.,  p.  510. 

59  Inasmuch  as  the  connection  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea  with  Glaston- 
bury has  been  shown  to  be  a  late  invention  based  on  the  romances, 
there  is  no  need  of  discussing  Nutt's  hypothesis  as  to  the  origin  of 
Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph  and  the  part  that  Bron  plays  in  it,  viz., 
that  "Borron,  or  rather  the  sources  he  followed  became  acquainted 
with  a  Bran  conversion  legend,  and  fused  it  with  the  better-known 
Joseph  one"  (The  Legends  of  the  Holy  Grail,  p.  65,  London,  1902). 
He  had  already  advocated  this  theory  in  his  Studies,  pp.  218ff.,  and 
A.  C.  L.  Brown  seems  still  to  accept  it.  Cp.  the  latter's  article  "From 
Cauldron  of  Plenty  to  Grail,"  Modern  Philology,  XIV,  385  ff.  (1916), 
Bran  here,  it  should  be  explained,  is  the  son  of  Llyr  in  the  Welsh 
tale,  Branwen,  Daughter  of  Llyr.  There  he  is  represented  as  possessing 
a  cauldron  of  healing  and  rejuvenation,  which,  Nutt  thinks,  may  have 
developed  in  tradition  into  a  talisman  of  increase  and  plenty.  Nutt's 
idea  that  this  Bran  was  a  hero  of  a  legend  concerning  the  conversion 
of  Britain,  itself,  rests  on  a  slender  foundation,  viz.,  a  Welsh  triad 
of  which  there  is  no  trace  prior  to  the  late  thirteenth  century.  Accor- 
ding to  this  triad  he  was  "one  of  the  three  blissful  Rulers  of  the 
Island  of  Britain,  who  first  brought  the  faith  of  Christ  to  the  nation 
of  the  Cymry  from  Rome,  where  he  was  seven  years  a  hostage  for 
his  son  Caradawc."  For  this  triad  see  Loth's  Mobinogion2,  II,  308 f. 
and  for  the  character  in  Welsh  literature,  in  general,  ibid.,  I,  119, 
note  2,  —  also  Rhys:  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  306 ff. 
Moreover,  Bran  is  called  "the  Blessed"  in  the  Welsh  tale  cited  above. 


268  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 


These  materials,  however,  are  too  slight  to  show  that  there  ever  existed 
an  actual  narrative  about  Bran  as  the  original  converter  of  Britain. 
In  any  event,  the  implication  of  the  triad  has  nothing  in  common 
with  the  story  of  Robert's  Bron.  Nutt  regards  the  epithet  "Blessed" 
here  as  "originally  pagan"  and  acknowledges  that  the  triad  may  be 
"a  reflex  of  the  Grail  romances,"  though  he  believes  otherwise.  Rhys, 
loc.  cit.;  advocates  strongly  Nutt's  theory,  but  unfortunately,  since  he 
had  no  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  French  romances,  his  opinions  in 
such  a  matter  carry  little  weight.  He  confesses  (p.  311)  that  the 
extant  Welsh  texts  do  not  support  the  theory.  Before  Nutt  some 
scholars  had  already  derived  the  name  of  Bron  in  Robert's  Joseph 
from  Celtic  Bran,  and  identified  the  two  characters.  So,  explicitly, 
G.  A.  Heinrich,  Le  Parcival  de  Wolfram  d'Eschenbach  et  la  Legende 
du  Saint  Graal}  p.  59  (Paris,  1855).  Cp.,  too,  E.  Martin,  Zur  Gral- 
sage,  p.  37  (Strassburg,  1880).  I  have  tried  to  show  in  Part  IV 
the  true  origin  of  Robert's  Bron. 


Chapter  II. 
The  Theory  of  Celtic  Origin. 

I  have  so  far  presented  the  theory  which  appears  to  me  to 
offer  the  most  acceptable  explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  Grail. 
We  have,  however,  the  rival  theory  of  Celtic  origin  to  consider, 
the  most  important  advocates  of  which  have  been  the  late  Alfred 
Nutt,1  and,  among  living  scholars,  A.  C.  L.  Brown.2  Nutt  was 
primarily  a  folk-lorist  and  he  accordingly  approaches  the  subject 


1  In  his  chief  work,  Studies  on  the  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail 
(London,  1888)  —  also,  in  the  Legends  of  the  Holy  Grail  (No.  14 
of  Popular  Studies  in  Mythology,  Romance,  and  Folk-Lore,  Lon- 
don,  1902),  and  other  minor  publications. 

*  In  various  papers,  to  be  named  as  occasion  arises.  —  So,  too 
Rhys  in  Ch.  13,  "Origins  of  the  Holy  Grail,"  and  Ch.  14,  "Glaston- 
bury and  Gower,"  of  his  work,  cited  in  the  next  to  the  last  note. 
For  the  reasons  there  stated,  however,  despite  his  eminence  as  a 
Welsh  scholar,  Rhys's  contributions  to  the  present  subject  are  not  pro- 
fitable reading.  Indeed,  they  strike  me  as  fantastic  to  the  last  degree. 
Ch.  15,  "Isles  of  the  Dead,"  on  the  other  hand,  has  an  independent 
value  for  its  discussion  of  such  conceptions  in  the  Celtic  world. 

In  his  review  of  Nutt's  Studies,  Romania,  XVIII,  588  ff.  (1889) 
G.  Paris  thinks  that  Nutt  has  proved  "l'origine  celtique  d'une  grande 
partie  des  elements  qui  figurent  dans  les  romans  du  saint  graal."  He 
commends,  especially,  in  this  connection,  the  Gaelic  tale  of  the  Great 
Fool,  which  the  English  scholar  adduces  as  a  parallel  to  the  accounts 
of  Perceval's  youth  in  the  Arthurian  romances.  On  the  other  hand, 
he  speaks  of  Nutt's  parallels  to  the  Grail  itself  as  merely  plausible 
and  of  his  hypothesis  "sur  l'origine  britannique  de  la  'prehistoire'  du 
graal"  as  wanting  in  solidity.  But  after  Zimmer,  Gbttingische  Ge- 
lehrte  Anzeigen,  June  10,  1890,  objected  to  the  Great  Fool  parallel 
as  too  modern,  Nutt,  Folk-Lore,  III,  401  f.  withdrew  that  parallel, 
"for  the  present,  at  least,"  and,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  never  brought 
it  forward  again  in  his  discussions  of  the  Grail. 


270  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

from  that  point  of  view.  He  says3:  "Leaving  subsidiary  details 
out  of  account,  we  may  bring  all  the  instances  in  which  the  Grail 
appears  under  two  formulas:  that  of  the  kinsman  avenging  a  blood 
feud  by  the  means  of  the  three  magic  talismans,  sword  and  lance 
and  vessel;  and  that  of  the  visit  to  the  Bespelled  Castle,  the  in- 
mates of  which  enjoy,  thanks  to  the  magic  vessel,  a  supernaturally 
prolonged  life,  from  which  they  are  released  by  the  hero's  question 
concerning  that  vessel.  The  one  we  may  call  the  feud  quest,  the 
other  the  unspelling  quest."  ''The  castle  to  which  the  avenger 
must  penetrate  to  win  the  talismans  [  i.e.  vessel,  sword,  etc.  ]  and 
that  to  which  the  hero  comes  with  the  intent  of  freeing  its  lords 
are  both  symbols  of  the  otherworld"  (p.  183).  He  finds  the  ori- 
ginal of  the  Grail,  then,  in  certain  magic  vessels  that  had  the  power 
of  supplying  food  to  an  unlimited  extent.  He  cites  the  cauldron 
of  the  Dagda  (the  good  god)  in  the  Irish  legend  of  the  Tuatha 
de  Danann  (a  race  of  fairies  and  wizards  who  possessed  Ireland 
before  the  Milesian  invasion).  There  is  considerable  doubt,  how- 
ever, about  the  antiquity  of  this  tradition.  Less  open  to  suspicion 
on  this  score  is  the  next  saga  of  The  Battle  of  Magh  Rath,  which 
relates  to  events  that  took  place  in  the  seventh  century  and  which 
seems  to  have  been  written  down  in  the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth 
century  (p.  185).  Here  we  are  told  how  the  sons  of  the  King  of 
Alba  sought  to  obtain  from  their  father  the  'Caire  Ainsicen'  — 
so  called,  because  it  was  the  caire  or  cauldron  which  was  used  to 
return  his  own  proper  share  to  each  and  no  party  ever  went  away 
from  it  unsatisfied;  for  whatever  quantity  was  put  into  it  there 
was  never  boiled  of  it  but  what  was  sufficient  for  the  company 
according  to  their  grade  or  rank.  "The  [Irish]  writer  then  goes 
on  to  instance  similar  cauldrons  te  be  met  with  in  the  older  history 
of  Ireland.  These  may  nearly  all  be  referred  to  the  oldest  Irish 
heroic  cycle,  the  Ultonian,  of  which  Cuchullain  is  the  most  pro- 
minent figure"  (p.  185).  Two  of  the  instances  in  question  are 
cited  from  two  of  the  most  celebrated  tales  of  this  cycle  —  viz. 
the  Toghail  Bruighne  da  Derga  and  the  Tale  of  Mac  Datho's  Pig. 


Studies,  p.  181. 


The  Theory  of  Celtic  Origin  271 

Nutt  cited,  also  (p.  186),  the  cauldron  of  Bran  in  the  Welsh 
tale  of  Bran  wen,  the  daughter  of  Llyr,  which  dates  from  the 
end  of  the  twelfth  century  or  beginning  of  the  thirteenth.4  Here, 
however,  the  vessel  is  not  food-producing,5  but  it  has  (like  Medea's 
cauldron)  the  power  of  bringing  the  dead  to  life  again.  As  is 
said  in  the  tale:  "The  property  of  it  is  that  if  one  of  thy  men  be 
slain  to-day  and  be  cast  therein,  the  morrow  he  will  be  as  well 
as  ever  he  was  at  his  best,  except  that  he  will  not  regain  his  speech." 
There  is  also  a  vessel  of  balsam  in  various  Gaelic  tales  that  has  this 
revivifying   power.6 

A.  C.  L.  Brown  has  similarly  identified  the  Bleeding  Lance 
of  Chretien  with  the  Luin  of  Celtchar  of  Irish  saga  —  a  marvellous 
spear.7  In  the  Bruden  Da  Derga  (=  Destruction  of  Da  Dergas 
Palace)  it  is  said  of  this  lance  that  "a  cauldron  full  of  poison  is 
needed  to  quench  it  when  a  deed  of  manslaying  is  expected.  Un- 
less this  come  to  the  lance,  it  flames  on  its  haft  and  will  go  through 
its  bearer  or  the  master  of  the  palace  wherein  it  is.  If  it  is  to 
be  a  blow  that  is  to  given  thereby,  it  will  kill  a  man  at  every  blow, 
when  it  is  at  that  feat  from  one  hour  to  another,  though  it  may 
not  reach  him.  And  if  it  be  a  cast,  it  will  kill  nine  men  at  every 
cast,  and  one  of  the  nine  will  be  a  king  or  crown  prince  or  chieftain 
of  the  reavers"  (Brown,  p.  18).  In  another  Irish  saga,  the  Mesca 
Ulad  (=  Intoxication  of  the  Ultonians),  the  cauldron  which  was 

4  Cp.  Loth's  Mabhwgion  2,  I,  30. 

5  Rhys,  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  305  ff.,  however,  has  cited  food- 
producing  vessels  from  Welsh  tradition.  He  thinks  (p.  312)  that  the 
Mwys  (basket)  of  Gwyddno  Garanhir,  described  in  Kulhwch  and  Olwen 
(Loth's  Mabinogion',  I,  305)  is  more  nearly  "the  pagan  prototype  of 
the  Grail  of  Christian  romance"  than  anything  else  in  Welsh.  Although 
tiie  whole  world,  in  groups  of  thrice  nine  men,  should  present  themselves, 
every  man  would  find  food  to  his  taste  in  this  basket. 

6  A.  C.  L.  Brown  argues,  Kittredge  Anniversary  Papers,  p.  244, 
note  2,  for  a  connection  between  the  regenerating  Celtic  cauldron  and 
the  cauldron  of  plenty.  All  that  one  can  legitimately  say  on  the  sub- 
ject, however,  is  that  they  are  both  fairy-tale  fancies  of  a  kindred 
order.  So,  too,  it  seems  to  me,  with  the  cauldron  of  inspiration  in 
the  Welsh  story  of  Gwion,  cited  by  Nutt,  pp.  210f. 

7  Cp.  his  article,  "The  Bleeding  Lance",  PMLA,  XXV,  Iff.  (1910). 


272  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

needed  to  quench  the  ardour  of  the  wondrous  spear  is  described  as 
"a  blood-black  cauldron  of  horrid,  noxious  liquid  .  .  .  composed 
through  sorcery  of  the  blood  of  dogs,  cats  and  Druids"  (p.  22). 
Brown,  himself,  however,  acknowledges  (p.  23)  that  perpetual 
bleeding  is  not  mentioned  in  the  Irish  sagas  as  one  of  the  mar- 
vellous properties  of  the  Luin,  and  the  same  is  true  of  all  other 
wonderful  weapons  in  Irish  and  Welsh  saga.  A  spear  dipped  into 
a  cauldron  of  blood  to  render  it  innocuous  to  its  owner  and  those 
nearby  is,  certainly,  a  very  different  affair  from  the  lance  of 
Chretien's  procession.  As  Miss  Peebles  (p.  194)  very  sensibly 
remarks:  "With  the  Christian  lance  [i.e.  lance  of  Longinus]  so 
obviously  and  suitably  at  hand,  in  literature,  which,  as  writers 
of  romances,  themselves,  they  must  have  known,  in  art  produc- 
tions which  they  must  have  seen,  and  in  the  drama  with  which 
they  must  have  been  familiar,  why  should  the  Grail  romancers 
seek  a  bleeding  lance  in  the  Luin  of  Celtchar,  which  after  all  does 
not  bleed."8 

Professor  Brown  cites  (pp.  42ff.)  also  in  this  connection  the 
story  of  Balin  and  the  Dolorous  Stroke  which  is  found  in  the  Huth- 
Merlin,  I,  231  ff.:  In  the  palace  of  King  Pellehan,  pursued  by 
its  lord,  Balin  comes  to  a  room  filled  with  the  fragrance  of  spices 
with  a  great  silver  bowl  on  a  table  in  the  centre  and  within  this 
basin  stood  a  lance  perpendicularly  pointing  downward,  "and  any 
one  looking  at  it  would  have  marvelled  because  it  was  not  insert- 
ed nor  supported,  nor  fastened  anywhere."  Balin  was  on  the  point 
of  taking  it  and  a  voice  said  to  him:   "Do  not  take  it,  sinner." 

8  Brugger,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXXVI2,  189  f.,  in  reviewing 
Brown's  study,  also,  denies  any  connection  of  the  spear  of  the  Grail 
procession  with  this  Luin  of  Celtechar,  although  he,  like  Brown,  be- 
lieves in  the  Celtic  origin  of  the  Grail  legend. 

In  his  article,  "An  Old  Irish  Parallel  to  the  Motive  of  the  Bleeding 
Lance,"  Eriu,  VI,  156f.  (1912)  Kuno  Meyer  has  printed  an  Irish 
poem  which  is  supposed  to  offer  a  parallel  to  the  lance  of  the  Grail 
story:  A  chieftain  pollutes  the  hall  of  Tara  by  secretly  and  mischievously 
bringing  into  it  a  bloody  head  on  a  pole  or  lance  of  the  quicken-tree, 
while  the  king  was  holding  a  feast.  Meyer  thinks  that  the  text  is 
probably  of  the  tenth  century.  Obviously,  however,  we  have  here 
again  merely  a  bloody,  not  a  bleeding  lance. 


The  Theory  of  Celtic  Origin  273 

But  he  did  not  refrain  on  this  account  from  taking  it  with  both 
hands  and  he  struck  with  it  Pellehan  who  was  coming  against  him 
so  vehemently  that  he  thrust  it  through  both  of  his  thighs.'*  The 
king  fell  to  the  earth  and  the  knight  returned  the  lance  to  the  place 
from  which  he  had  taken  it,  and  when  he  had  replaced  it,  it  stood 
as  before.  This  was  the  Dolorous  Stroke  which  Merlin  had  pro- 
phesied (I,  231)  would  put  the  kingdom  in  distress  for  twenty- 
two  years  and  would  wound  the  most  holy  man  there  was  in  the 
world."  And  so,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  desolation  does  overtake  the 
land.  Later  on  Balin  is  slain  in  a  duel  with  his  brother  —  an 
unnatural  combat  which  has  been  made  the  subject  of  poems  by 
both  Tennyson  (Balin  and  Balan)  and  Swinburne  (The  Tale  of 
Balen).9  The  Huth-Merlin,  however,  is  a  late  prose-romance,  and, 
like  all  the  prose-romances,  it  is  not  based  directly  on  Celtic  sources 
—  on  the  contrary,  it  is  made  up  mainly  by  rehashing  episodes 
in  previous  romances,  and  this  very  story  of  Balin  and  the  Dolor- 
ous Stroke  is  plainly  an  invention  that  combines  features  of  the 
Grail  Castle  episodes  of  the  earlier  romances  with  other  features 
that  are  drawn  from  the  prose  Lancelot,  the  episode  of  Gawain 
and  the  Perilous  Bed.10 

Altogether  Professor  Brown  (p.  57)  takes  the  Grail,  Lance, 
and  Sword  of  Chretien's  Grail  Procession  as  going  back  to  the 
shining  talismans  of  the  Tuatha  Da  Danaan,  viz.  the  Stone  of 
Destiny,  the  Cauldron  of  the  Dagda,11  the  Spear  of  Lug  and  the 

9  The  development  of  the  various  versions  from  the  Middle  Ages 
down  has  been  discussed  by  E.  Vettermann,  Die  Balendichtungen  und 
ihre  Quellen  (Halle,  1918).  The  book  has  no  original  value,  however, 
for  the  affiliation  of  the  mediaeval  versions. 

10  In  the  review  of  Brown's  paper  on  the  Bleeding  Lance,  Brugger, 
p.  190,  expresses  the  same  view  that  I  have  here  expressed.  He  points 
to  the  following  romances  as  sources  of  the  Balaain  episodes  in  the 
Huth-Merlin:  Meriadeuc,  Meraugis,  the  first  continuation  to  Chretien's 
Perceval  (or  its  source),  Grand  Saint  Graal.  On  this  subject  see  also 
Heinzel,  p.  31,  and  Brugger,  ibid.;  XXXI2,  pp.   132  ff. 

11  In  his  "From  Cauldron  of  Plenty  to  Grail,"  Modem  Philo- 
logy, XIV,  385  ff.  (1916)  Brown  has  collected  from  Irish  literature  — 
more  especially  from  the  imrama  —  examples  which  are  intended  to 
illustrate  the  supposed  derivation  of  the  Grail  from  a  Celtic  cauldron 


274  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Sword  of  Lug.12  But  the  sole  authority  on  which  this  grouping  of 
talismans  rests  is  the  seventeenth  century  Irish  historian,  Keating. 
He  usually  draws  from  old  sources  —  but  in  this  instance,  no  one 
can  say  how  old  or  how  late.  Moreover,  Keating  does  not  define  the 
nature  of  these  talismans,  or  "treasures"  merely,  as  he  calls  them. 
He  expressly  identifies  the  Stone  of  Destiny  with  the  stone  brought 
by  Edward  I  from  Scone  in  Scotland,  which  to-day  rests  in  West- 
minster Abbey  and  ip  occupied  by  the  English  kings  on  the  oc- 
casion of  their  coronation.  Perhaps,  the  sword  and  spear  of 
the  same  list  were  as  little  marvellous  as  the  stone.  All  this 
is  obviously  too  vague  to  form  the  basis  for  conclusions  6f  any 
value.  And  it  is  to  be  remembered  still  further  that  this  late 
list  of  objects  which  we  know  nothing  about  is  Irish,  and  we 
have  not  a  scrap  of  evidence  to  prove  that  it  was  known  to  the 
only  Celtic  peoples  from  whom  a  writer  of  Northern  France  would 
with  any  probability  have  drawn  his  materials,  viz.  the  Welsh 
and  the  Bretons. 

Finally,  in  regard  to  these  supposed  evidences  of  the  Celtic 
origin  of  the  Grail,  it  has  been  argued13  that  the  position  of  the 
fireplace  in  the  hall  of  the  Grail  castle  as  described  by  Chretien, 

of  plenty,  just  as  his  previous  article  was  intended  to  illustrate  the 
derivation  of  the  Grail  spear  from  a  marvellous  Celtic  spear.  But  to 
me  these  illustrations  are  as  little  convincing  as  the  others.  The 
passages  quoted  by  Brown  contain  some  instances  of  miraculous  feeding 
and  some  examples  of  the  syncretism  of  Christian  and  pagan  elements, 
but  there  is  really  no  distinctly  marvellous  vessel  in  them,  and  the 
accompanying  incidents  are  about  as  different  from  those  which  we 
find  in  the  Grail  romances  as  one  could  imagine. 

Already  in  "Nates  on  Celtic  Cauldrons  of  Plenty  and  the  Land- 
Beneath-The-Waves",  Kittredge  Anniversary  Papers,  pp.  235  ff.  (Boston 
and  London,  1913),  Brown  had  tried  to  prove  that  these  cauldrons 
were  connected  with  the  Celtic  under-sea  Elysium  and  that  the 
Grail  castle  was  also  connected  with  the  sea  —  hence  that  the  Grail 
was  in  origin  such  a  Celtic  cauldron,  this  feature,  which  the  two  have 
in  common,  confirming  the  evidence  of  other  features  of  similaritv. 

Nutt,    op.  cit.,  p.  184,   had   already    made   this   identification. 

By  W.  A.  Nitze,  in  an  important  article,  "The  Castle  of  the 
Grail  —  an  Irish  Analogue,"  Studies  in  Honor  of  A.  Marshall 
Elliott,  I,  19ff.  (issued  in  1911  at  Baltimore,  though  undated). 


The  Theory  of  Celtic  Origin  275 

11.  3055  ff.  betrays  Celtic  origin.  It  is  said  that  the  fire  before 
which  the  Grail-King  sat  was  between  four  columns  and  that 
four  hundred  men  could  conveniently  sit  about  this  fire.  The 
columns  that  held  up  the  chimney  were  strong  and  made  of  brass. 
Now,  the  chimneys  of  French  mediaeval  castles  were  the  same 
as  at  present,  whereas  the  fire  here  is  in  the  open  hearth  in  the 
centre  of  the  hall,  like  the  one  in  the  palace  at  Tara,  as  described 
in  the  Irish  sagas.  We  are  dealing,  however,  with  a  romance  — 
with  a  narrative  of  a  fantastic  kind  like  that  of  a  folk-tale,  and 
it  is  questionable  whether  we  should  expect  in  such  a  work  literal 
conformity  with  the  actual  customs  of  the  time,  even  granting  that 
no  such  primitive  hearth  may  have  really  existed  by  way  of  sur- 
vival in  some  French  castles  of  the  twelfth  century.  Moving  in 
the  atmosphere  of  a  folktale,  the  poet  may  have  purposely  made 
his  description  archaic.  In  any  event,  there  is  no  sufficient  cer- 
tainty about  the  matter  for  this  detail  to  turn  definitely  the  scales 
in  favor  of  the  Celtic  theory. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  obvious  from  this  discussion,  that  the 
theory  that  in  Celtic  folk-tales  the  Grail  legend  found  its  origin 
is  not  satisfactory.  No  one  has  as  yet  brought  forward  a  folk-tale, 
Celtic  or  otherwise,  corresponding  in  incident  and  setting  to  the 
Grail  story.14  Parallels  (not  very  satisfactory  in  themselves)  to 
the  individual  features  of  it  have  to  be  collected  from  widely  sep- 
arated sources  —  sources,  too,  of  uncertain  date.  This  being  the 
case,  there  is  no  need  of  considering  a  still  further  objection:15 
namely,  the  improbability  that  a  purely  folk-lore,  food-providing 
vessel  should  be  identified  with  the  most  sacred  objects  of  the 
Christian  faith,  the  Blood  of  the  Redeemer,  the  Chalice  of  the 
Eucharist  —  and  that  not  in  stories  of  popular  origin,  but  in 
the  long  romances  of  educated  men.  As  will  have  been  seen  above, 
the  food-producing  quality  of  the  Grail  does  not  appear  in  the 
earliest  versions  of  the  legend  —  Chretien's  and  Robert's.  It  is 
a  later  development,  being  found  first  in  Pseudo-Wauchier  (11. 
20114ff.),  and  the  very  fact  that  a  poet  did  attach  to  the  vessel 


IB 


So  Miss  J.  L.  Weston,  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  p.  70. 
Raised  by  Miss  Weston,  op.  cit.,  p.  68. 


276  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

this  quality,  although  his  predecessors  had  described  it  as  holy, 
tends  to  prove  that  the  mediaeval  romancers  did  not  have  the, 
scruples  that  some  scholars  have  imputed  to  them.  But  the  rea- 
sons already  advanced  for  rejecting  the  Celtic  theory  are,  we 
believe,  sufficient.16 


16  Celtic  traces  in  certain  names  which  we  find  in  the  Grail 
romances  have  no  force  in  sustaining-  the  theory  of  Celtic  origins.  For 
example,  in  Romania,  XXIV,  322,  F.  Lot  calls  attention  to  the  place 
name,  "Chateau  de  Lis"  in  the  first  continuation  to  Chretien's  Perceval. 
Lis,  as  he  points  out,  is  llys,  the  Welsh  word  for  "castle."  But  the 
writer  is  here  probably  adopting  Lis  as  a  place-name  from  Chretien's 
Perceval,  where  we  have  a  character  named  "Meliant  de  Liz  (or 
Lis).11  We  have  considered  Chretien's  relation  to  supposed  Celtic 
sources  above.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  any  event  he  would  try 
to  give  a  Celtic  coloring  to  whatever  romance  he  might  write. 


Chapter  III. 
The  Ritual  Theory. 

The  third  theory  of  the  origin  of  the  Grail  legend  is  one 
which  was  suggested  by  Simrock  as  far  back  as  1842  in  the  notes 
to  his  translation  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach1  —  namely,  that 
the  conception  of  the  Grail  sprang  from  the  ritual  of  some  cult 
of  the  Vegetation  Spirit,  or  "the  slain  God",  as  he  is  called  very 
often  in  the  history  of  religion,  as  typified,  for  example,  in  Adonis 
and  Osiris.2  This  particular  theory,  however,  has  only  assumed 
importance  in  the  last  ten  years  or  so  through  the  publication 
of  W.  A.  Nitze's  "The  Fisher  King  in  the  Grail  Romances  \*  and 


1  For  a  convenient  summary  of  Simrock's  views,  cp.  Nutt's  Studies 
on  the  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail,  pp.  lOOf. 

2  It  lies,  also,  at  the  bottom  of  E.  Martin's  identification  of  the 
sick  Grail  King  with  the  wounded  Arthur,  Zur  Gralsage,  pp.  3 Iff. 
(Strassburg,  1880),  and  in  his  edition  of  Wolfram,  pp.  LVIIIff.;  for  he 
interprets  (p.  32)  the  wounded  Arthur,  who  is  borne  to  Avalon,  but 
is  destined  to  return  healed,  as  a  representative  of  the  Vegetation  God. 
The  best  refutation,  I  may  add,  of  Martin's  identification  is  the  fact 
that  we  find  Arthur  in  all  the  romances  in  which  the  Grail  King 
appears,  except  Robert's  Joseph,  and  yet  the  two  are  never  identified. 
In  the  Joseph,  the  action  of  which,  besides,  does  not  lie  in  Britain, 
sickness  or  lameness  is  not  an  attribute  of  the  Grail  King.  We  have, 
of  course,  stories  (some  of  which  are  cited  by  Martin)  in  which  Arthur 
is  pictured  as  living  in  fairy-land  style  (especially  in  mountains)  and 
as  subsisting,  presumably,  in  a  miraculous  manner,  and  in  these  respects 
there  are  points  of  contact  between  his  legend  and  that  of  the  Grail 
King,  but  these  are,  obviously,  merely  general  folklore  motifs.  —  For 
a  criticism  of  Martin's  theory,  cp.  Heinzel,  pp.  67 f.  —  Cp.  with  Mar- 
tin's theory  the  story  about  the  imprisonment  of  Cronos  on  an  isle 
near  Britain,  which  Rhys,  pp.  367 f,  quotes  from  Plutarch. 

8  It  was  published  in  PMLA.,  XXIV,  365  ff.  (1909). 


278  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Miss  J.  L.  Weston's  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  Vol.  2  (1909).* 
Although  these  two  scholars  worked  out  the  theory  independently 
of  each  other,  their  results  agree  in  the  most  essential  respects. 
It  was  obviously  under  the  influence  of  Frazer's  Golden  Bough 
that  both  were  led  to  adopt  this  theory. 

First,  as  regards  Professor  Nitze,  he  takes  for  comparison  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  of  Greece  which  was  a  Demeter  cult  —  that  is, 
a  cult  of  the  Vegetation  Spirit.  The  Grail  procession  is,  then, 
by  origin,  a  vegetation  ceremony,  and  "The  Holy  Grail,  by  the 
mediaeval  romancers  often  conceived  in  terms  of  a  quest,  is  au  fond 
an  initiation,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  ensure  the  life  of  the 
vegetation  spirit,  always  in  danger  of  extinction  and  to  admit  the 
'qualified'  mortal  into  its  mystery"  (p.  394).  Professor  Nitze 
thinks  that,  like  the  Eleusinian,  the  Grail  rites  may  have  been 


4  Already  in  Vol.  I  (1906)  o!  this  work  (pp.  329ff.)  Miss  Weston 
had  put  forward  her  theory.  She  developed  it  more  fully  in  a  paper, 
"The  Grail  and  the  Rites  of  Adonis,"  which  she  read  before  the  Folk- 
Lore  Society  on  December  19,  1906,  and  which  was  published  in 
Folk-Lore,  XVIII,  283  ff.  (Sept.  1907).  Vol.  II  of  her  Legend  of 
Sir  Perceval,  however,  contains  the  completest  exposition  of  her  theory, . 
although  the  essentials  are  more  clearly  presented  in  her  Folk-Lore 
paper,  just  mentioned,  and  in  a  more  recent  book,  The  Quest  of  the 
Holy  Grail,  pp.  75 ff.  (London,  1913).  In  her  latest  Grail  treatise, 
From  Ritual  to  Romance,  (Cambridge,  1920),  she  tries,  still  further, 
to  bring  together  parallels  to  each  feature  of  the  Grail  story  from  the 
records  of  the  pagan  mystery  cults  and  to  show  the  intimate  union 
that  once  existed  between  the  latter  and  Christianity.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  her  method  of  work,  when  she  declares  (p.  5  of  the  last- 
named  treatise)  that  her  aim  is  "to  determine  the  origin,  not  to  dis- 
cuss the  provenance  and  interrelation  of  the  different  versions. ""I  do 
not  believe  this  latter  task  can  be  satisfactorily  achieved  unless  and 
until  we  are  of  one  accord  as  to  the  character  of  the  subject  matter. 
When  we  have  made  up  our  minds  as  to  what  the  Grail  really  was, 
and  what  it  stood  for,  we  shall  be  able  to  analyze  the  romances;  to 
decide  which  of  them  contains  more,  which  less  of  the  original  matter, 
and  to  group  them  accordingly."  But  to  approach  the  texts  with 
preconceived  notions,  instead  of  making  them,  in  due  historical  order, 
as  far  as  that  can  be  ascertained,  the  primary  basis  of  the  whole  in- 
vestigation  is,    obviously,    the   reverse   of   all  sound  scientific   method. 


The  Ritual  Theory  279 

both  agrarian  and  mystic  from  the  start.  On  this  basis,  then,  he 
interprets  the  three  essential  figures  and  the  three  essential  sym- 
bols of  the  Grail  theme  in  the  following  manner. 

I.  The  Fisher  King.  He  is  "an  intermediary  between  the 
two  planes  of  existence,  the  present  and  the  hereafter;  himself  the 
symbol  of  the  creative,  fructifying  force  in  nature,  specifically 
associated  with  water  or  'moisture'.  The  representative  of  the 
otherworld,  he  is  also  the  guide  to  it,  perhaps,  as  Nutt  has  sug- 
gested, the  Dis  or  Pluto  of  the  Celtic  Hades.  Hence  he  is  de- 
scribed as  fishing  on  the  water,  as  directing  the  Arthurian  knight 
to  the  Grail  castle,  as  officiating  as  Perceval's  host,  as  presiding 
at  the  Grail  repast,  as  the  person  of  whom  the  question  must  be 
asked,  as  being  succeeded  by  the  Grail  knight.  And  his  weakness 
or  infirmity  agrees  with  Nature's  declining  strength;  thus,  his 
land  lies  waste  or  is  under  the  ban  of  enchantment." 

II.  "The  Grail  Knight...  is  the  initiate.  As  such  he  must 
qualify  specially  and  is  responsible  for  the  success  of  the  Grail 
service,  since,  if  he  fails,  the  crops  fail  and  the  springs  run  dry. 
Having  succeeded,  he  is  not  only  iTmTrrris  in  the  sense  that  he 
beholds  the  vision . . .  but  he  shares  in  the  secrets  of  the  Grail  and 
becomes  the  Fisher  King's  successor." 

III.  The  Fisher  King's  father  or  "double".  This  charac- 
ter, which  occurs  only  in  Chretien  and  in  certain  prose  romances, 
that  all  derive  it  directly  or  indirectly  from  him,5  is,  we  may  re- 
mark, about  as  difficult  to  explain  under  one  theory  as  another. 
It  may  be  due  to  some  misunderstanding  of  his  source,  on  Chre- 
tien's part.  In  any  event,  it  is  a  "double"  and  is  not  fundamental 
in  the  Grail  legend,  as  its  omission  from  so  many  versions  proves. 
In  Nitze's  view,  he  stands  for  the  life-god  himself,  like  Adonis 


5  The  Queste  adopted  it  from  Chretien,  and  from  the  Queste  (mainly) 
it  passed  into  the  other  prose  romances.  Cp.  on  the  subject  my  ar- 
ticles, "Pelles,  Pellinor  und  Pellean,"  MPh.,  XV,  113ff.,  331ff.  (1918) 
and  "The  Composition  of  the  Old  French  Prose  Lancelot,"  RE,  IX, 
360,  including  note  72  (1918).  Miss  Weston,  From  Ritual  to  Ro- 
mance, pp.  115ff.,  regards  this  double  as  of  purely  literary  origin 
and  as  having  had  no  place  in  the  original  Grail  ritual  of  her  theory. 


280  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

or  Osiris.    If  we  interpret  the  Grail  as  of  Christian  origin,  he  may 
well  represent  the  Holy  Spirit. 

IV.  The  Grail  is  paralleled  in  the  [  Eleusinian  ]  Mysteries 
by  the  "Kicrrri  or  Holy  Box"  [a  ritualistic  vessel  of  which  nothing 
definite  is  known,  but  it  seems  to  have  contained  bread  as  a  sym- 
bol of  the  life-giving  god,  p.  388]  and  "is  the  receptacle  for  the 
divine  food  (wafer  or  blood)  by  partaking  of  which  the  mortal 
establishes  a  blood-bond  with  the  god.  Thus  the  Grail  comes 
naturally  to  possess  talismanic  properties,  primarily  providing  food, 
but  also  preserving  from  disease  and  decay,  distinguishing  the 
faithful  from  the  sinners,  and  even  ensuring  victory  in  battle.  This 
leads  by  easy  stages  to  its  identification  in  the  twelfth  century, 
through  the  medium  of  a  holy  blood  legend,  with  the  relic  of  Cal- 
vary, and  thence  with  the  cup  of  the  Last  Supper."  The  avenue 
of  transmission,  Nitze  thinks,  was  possibly  Glastonbury  (in  Eng- 
land) or  Fecamp  (in  France).  It  seems,  he  observes,  that,  at 
least,  in  the  twelfth  century  the  monks  at  Fecamp  laid  claim  to 
the  possession  of  a  Holy  Blood  relic.  The  same  thing  was  true 
of  Glastonbury  in  the  fifteenth  century,6  but  the  date  is  so  late 
that  it  affords  no  justification  for  Nitze's  assumption. 

V.     "The  Lance...  is  a  symbol  like  the  Sword  of  Light  of' 
Celtic  fairy  tales  and  probably  identical  in  origin  with  it."  —  I 
may  remark,  incidentally,  however,  that  in  the  tales  of  which  this 
sword  is  a  feature  the  weapon  is  merely  a  marvellous  one,  but  no 
definite  characteristics  are  given  it.7 

Nitze  concludes,  then,  that  the  Grail  theme  is  based  on  an 
agrarian  cult  with  its  ritual.  But  he  leaves  it  an  open  question 
as  to  what  part  of  the  world  we  should  localize  this  cult  in.  He 
had  endeavored  to  show  that  the  Grail  ceremonies  have  the  same 
leit-motiv  (p.  411)  as  the  ancient  mysteries  —  for  instance,  the 
Eleusinian  —  but  he  thinks  it  possible  that  the  Grail  romances 
may  have  derived  it  from  a  similar  cult  among  the  Celts  —  con- 
nected ultimately,  it  may  be,  with  the  Mediterranean  cults.  He 
even  attempts  to  supply  Celtic  parallels  to  some  of  the  essential 
characters  and  objects  of  the  Grail  theme  —  e.g.  Manannan  mac 

"  Cp.  Heinzel,  p.  42. 

7  Cp.  G.  L.  Kittredge,  Arthur  and  Gorlagon,  pp.  2 1 3 ff . 


The  Ritual  Theory  281 

Lir,  the  shape-shifting  supernatural  being  of  Irish  romance 
(p.  397),  he  compares  with  the  Fisher  King,  the  Lance  with  one 
in  the  Welsh  Mabinogi,  Math,  Son  of  Mathonivy,  the  Sword,  as 
we  have  seen,  with  the  Sword  of  Light.  But  if  our  knowledge 
of  the  ancient  mysteries  and  their  ritual  was  meagre,  our  know- 
ledge of  any  Celtic  agrarian  cult  is  simply  nil.  So  the  way  is 
barred  to  any  progress  in  that  direction. 

The  objections  to  Nitze's  theory  are  plain  from  what  has 
already  been  said.  To  start  with,  our  information  in  regard  to 
the  ancient  mysteries  is  too  fragmentary  and  vague  to  furnish  a 
basis  for  any  trustworthy  conclusion.8  Moreover,  there  is  a  gap 
of  more  than  a  thousand  years  between  such  records  as  we  have 
of  these  mysteries  and  the  appearance  of  the  Grail  theme  in  liter- 
ature. Taken  together  with  the  indefinite  character  of  such  in- 
formation as  we  do  possess  about  them,  we  see  that  this  leaves 
the  whole  matter  hanging  in  the  air.  As  regards  the  supposed 
origin  from  Celtic  agrarian  cults,  here  we  have  no  basis  whatever 
for  discussion,  since  data  on  the  subject  are  completely  wanting.9 


8  The  best  authority  for  what  is  known  concerning  the  details 
of  the  Eleusinian  ritual  is  Paul  Foucart's  Les  Mysteres  d'Eleusis 
(Paris,  1914).  The  author,  however,  sums  up  (pp.  368f.):  "Nous 
possedons  done  peu  de  renseignements  sur  les  rites  et  les  ceremonies 
qui  s'accomplissaient  dans  le  telesterion  [i.  e.  place  for  initiation],  et 
encore,  chacun  d'eux,  comme  on  le  verra,  a  donne  lieu  aux  interpretations 
les  plus  diverses;  si  bien  qu'en  lisant  tout  ce  qui  a  ete  ecrit  sur  les 
Mysteres,  le  lecteur  se  trouve  plonge  dans  l'obscurite  la  plus  complete." 
He  rejects,  pp.  59  ff.,  the  interpretation  of  Greek  agrarian  cults  put 
forth  by  the  school  of  Mannhardt  and  Frazer. 

9  In  a  later  Grail  article,  entitled,  "The  Sister's  Son  and  the 
Conte  del  Graal,"  MPh.,  IX,  291. ff.  (1912),  Nitze  takes  the  ground 
that  "the  success  of  the  grail  ceremony  and  the  welfare  of  its  two 
kings  depend  on  Perceval's  conduct  towards  his  parent"  (p.  295),  i.  e. 
his  mother.  "The  fact  that  he  deserted  her  sealed  his  lips  in  the 
presence  of  the  grail"  (p.  294).  But  there  is  no  support  for  this  view 
in  Chretien's  text.  There  (11.  3166 ff.)  it  is  stated  explicitly  that  Per- 
ceval did  not  ask  the  meaning  of  the  first  of  the  Grail  objects  — 
the  bleeding  lance  —  because  of  Gornemant's  warning  (11.  1624ff.) 
that  he  should  not  talk  too  much,  and  the  same  thing,  of  course, 
applies  to  the  other  objects.    If  his  mother  later  dies  through  his  sin 


282  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

As  has  been  already  remarked,  the  theory  of  Miss  Weston 
is,  in  the  most  essential  respects,  identical  with  that  of  Nitze. 
As  I  have  intimated  above,  instead  of  seeking  analogies  to  the 
Grail  legend  in  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,  she  seeks  them  in  the 
Adonis  cult.  This  ancient  cult  she  supposes  to  have  persisted  down 
to  the  twelfth  century  through  the  agency  of  occult  sects  —  such 
as  we  have  even  at  the  present  day  —  and  thence  to  have  passed 
into  the  Grail  romances.  The  Adonis  cult,  however,  forms  an 
even  less  favorable  starting-point  than  the  Eleusinian  mysteries 
for  an  explanation  of  the  Grail  legend;  for,  if  we  know  little  of 
the  latter,  we  know  even  less  of  the  former.  The  twelfth  idyll 
of  Theocritus  and  other  sources  show  us,  of  course,  the  slain  god 
stretched  out  on  a  bed  with  women  wailing  about  him,  but  they 
give  us  no  detail  of  the  ritual  which  should  correspond  to  the 
Grail  procession.  This  slain  god  Miss  Weston  identifies  with  the 
Maimed  King  of  the  Grail  Castle.  Both,  in  the  euphemistic  langu- 
age of  the  respective  accounts,  have  been  wounded  in  the  thigh  — 
i.e.  both  (according  to  Miss  Weston)  have  been  deprived  of  their 
procreative  organs  or  reproductive  powers  —  and  are  waiting  for 
a  resurrection.  For  evidence  as  to  the  perpetuation  of  the  cult 
of  the  Vegetation  Spirit  down  even  to  the  present  time  in  the 
form  of  various  popular  festivals  Miss  Weston  refers  the  reader 
to  such  works  as  Mannhardt's  Baum-  und  Feld-Kultus,  and  Fra- 
zer's  Golden  Bough.10  On  this  theory,  the  wasting  of  the  land  — 

in  neglecting  to  ask  the  question  (11.  3555 ft),  this  is  simply  one  of 
the  many  misfortunes  which  his  failure  to  do  so  brought  about.  — 
Nitze,  ibid.,  thinks  that  the  Grail  story  came  to  the  French  romancers; 
from  the  Celts  and  that  the  (supposed)  mystic  bond  between  Perceval 
and  his  mother  in  respect  to  the  Grail  reflects  the  spirit  of  the  ma- 
triarchal system  which  he  argues  (pp.  304  ff.)  prevailed  among  the 
primitive  Celts. 

Brugger,  Zs.  /.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lift  XXXVI2,  18  (1910),  lays 
stress  on  the  fact  that  in  all  the  versions  of  the  Grail  story,  except 
Robert's  Joseph  (and  the  Didot-Perceval,  dependent  thereon),  the 
Grail-hero  is  related  to  the  Grail-keeper  on  the  mother's  side.  This 
fact,  however,  has  no  significance,  for  they  are  all  merely  following 
Chretien,  directly  or  indirectly. 

10  See,  especially,  her  From  Ritual  to  Romance,  ch.  5  (Cam- 
bridge,  1920),   for   examples  of  such  survivals  drawn   from  these  and 


The  Ritual  Theory  283 

which,  I  may  remark,  is  first  found  in  Pseudo-Wauchier,  not  in 
Chretien  —  is  connected  with  the  death  or  infirmity  of  the  King, 
because  the  King  represents  the  Vegetation  Spirit.  Similarly,  the 
achievement  of  the  quest,  by  restoring  the  King  to  health,  restores 
the  waste  lands  to  verdure  (pp.  80f.).  Miss  Weston,  however, 
strains  her  point  to  an  unreasonable  degree,  as  when  she  explains 
the  situation  of  the  Grail  castle  on  the  sea-coast  or  a  river  from 
the  fact  that  the  figure  representing  the  Spirit  of  Vegetation  in 
popular  cults  is  often  thrown  into  the  sea.  The  Grail  itself  and 
the  Bleeding  Lance  she  interprets  as  phallic  symbols,  representing 
respectively  the  female  and  male  organs  or  elements  in  the  act  of 
generation.  These  being  the  most  important  objects  in  the  Grail 
rites,  this  interpretation  constitutes  the  most  important  variation  of 
Miss  Weston's  theory  from  that  of  Nitze. 

The  hypothetical  ceremonies  from  which  she  derives  the  Grail 
legend  Miss  Weston  assumes  to  have  had  both  a  general  and  an 
esoteric  meaning.  The  main  body  of  worshippers  would  "regard 
the  whole  celebration  simply  as  a  means  of  securing  f ruitf ulness " 
{Quest ,  p.  85),  but  for  the  "elect  who  desired  to  penetrate  beneath 
the  outer  symbolism  of  the  ritual  to  its  inner  and  hidden  meaning 
the  Grail,  the  Source  and  Food  of  Life"  assumed  a  different 
form.  "The  aspirant  would  first  be  initiated  into  the  mystery  of 
the  origin  of  physical  life  "  (p.  88).  At  this  stage  the  Grail  would 
be  merely  a  food-supplying  dish.  Then  there  would  be  two  esoteric 
stages  of  initiation  to  pass  as  a  symbol  of  the  female  element  in  the 
generation  of  life.  Secondly  (and  lastly)  he  would  be  initiated 
into  "the  higher  Secret  of  the  Mysteries,  that  of  regeneration  and 
spiritual  life"  (p.  90).  The  experience  here  must  "pass  on  a 
higher,  a  non-material  plane  and  the  source  of  spiritual  life  must 
be  other  than  a  material  food-supplying  vessel"  (p.  91).  "The 
Grail  at  this  stage  is  wrought  of  no  material  substance."    "  The 


similar  authorities.  Of  particular  interest  are  those  (pp.  54  ff.)  which 
illustrate  the  superstition  that  the  fertility  of  the  land  is  connected 
with  the  health  of  the  king.  We  encounter  this  idea  in  the  Odyssey, 
XIX,  109  ff.  and  it  still  prevails  among  fhe  African  tribe,  the  Shilluk, 
whose  capital  is  Fashoda. 


284  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

test  here  [  =  at  this  stage  ]  demanded  of  the  Quester  is  that  he 
shall  ask  concerning  the  nature  and  use  of  this  mysterious  vessel; 
hut  ...  he  does  not  ask."  It  would  be  wearisome  to  follow  out 
Miss  Weston's  discussion  in  greater  detail.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
she  concludes  that  "Regarded  from  the  ritual  point  of  view,  it 
seems  clear  that  the  Grail  Quest  should  be  viewed  primarily  as  an 
initiation  story,  as  a  search  into  the  secret  and  mystery  of  life; 
it  is  the  record  of  an  initiation  manque'  (p.  95).  Miss  Weston 
finds  a  proof  of  the  correctness  of  her  theory  in  the  testimony  of 
occultists  among  her  friends  as  to  the  similarity  of  the  Grail  rites 
with  rites  of  their  sects.11  One  may  remark  on  this  subject,  how- 
ever, that  scientific  accuracy  is  not  likely  to  be  a  virtue  of  the 
devotees  of  occultism,  and,  in  any  event,  no  mere  hearsay  testi- 
mony can  be  accepted  as  proof.  The  way  in  which  Miss  Weston 
herself  misstated  (unintentionally,  of  course)  Ferdinand  Lot's  opi- 
nion concerning  her  theory  that  the  Didot-P  erceval  was  a  prose- 
rendering  of  a  hypothetical  lost  poem  by  Robert  de  Boron  shows 
the  danger  of  accepting  such  testimony.12 

11  Chretien  gives  no  specific  name  to  Perceval's  mother,  and  even 
the  name  of  Perceval,  himself,  is  not  disclosed  until  1.  3535.  Accor-. 
dingly,  when  the  hero  is  first  introduced  to  the  reader,  the  poet  merely 
calls  him  (1.  74)  "li  filz  a  la  veve  dame"  (athe  son  of  the  widow  lady"). 
Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  II,  306  f.  sees  in  this  simple 
descriptive  appellation  —  the  simplest  conceivable  —  a  deep  mystical 
meaning.  Having  consulted  an  occultist  friend,  she  writes :  "Sons  of 
the  Widow  is  a  very  wide-spread  synonym  for  Initiates.  The  Grail 
story  was,  as  we  have  seen,  an  initiation  story."  But  if  Chretien  (as 
is  not  infrequently  done  in  folk-tales  and  romances)  chooses  to  hold 
back  for  the  present  the  hero's  name  —  doubtless,  to  pique  the  reader's 
curiosity  —   what  other  designation  could  he  use? 

12  In  From  Ritual  to  Romance  ch.  11,  Miss  Weston  lays  much 
stress  on  a  Naassene  (Gnostic)  document  of  the  second  century  as 
proving  her  theory  concerning  the  ritual  origin  of  the  Grail  legend. 
We  have  here,  it  seems,  an  originally  pagan  ritual  that  has  absorbed 
Christian  elements.  But,  in  this  case,  again  we  are  dealing  with  a 
matter  that  antedates  our  earliest  Grail  text  by  a  thousand  years  and 
is  consequently  too  remote  for  any  direct  bearing  on  the  problem  of 
Grail  origins.  Besides,  there  is  no  similarity  between  the  Naassene 
document    and  the  descriptions   of   the  Grail   procession   in    our   texts. 


The  Ritual  Theory  285 

Miss  Weston  is  very  positive  that  Gawain  (and  not  Perceval) 
was  "the  original  progatonist  of  the  Quest  in  its  primitive,  pre- 
Christian  form"  (pp.  118f.).  But  she  is  alone  in  holding  this 
opinion  and  there  is  no  evidence  whatever  to  support  it.  She  is 
led  to  it  by  her  assumption  that  the  earliest  form  of  the  Grail 
story,  "so  far  as  the  subject-matter  is  concerned  is  .  .  .  that  em- 
bodied by  Wauchier  de  Denain  in  his  continuation  of  [Chretien's] 
Perceval"  (p.  31).  Wauchier  (quoted  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval, 
I,  288),  in  an  episode  which  has  no  connection  with  the  Grail, 
cites  as  his  authority  a  certain  Bleheris,  a  native  of  Wales,  who 
related   the  story  to  the  Count  of  Poitiers.13    The  appeal  might 

18  Only  one  MS.,  Add.  36614  (British  Museum)  contains  the  name, 
Bleheris.  Miss  Weston  printed  it  first  in  her  article,  "Wauchier  de 
Denain  and  Bleheris  (Bledhericus),"  Romania,  XXXIV  (1905),  lOOff, 
giving,  at  the  same  time,  the  reading^  of  the  other  MSS.  in  a  note. 
The  passage  runs  thus: 

Deviser  vos  voel  sa  faiture, 

Si  com  le  conte  Bleheris 

Qui  fu  nes  e  engenuis 

En  Gales  dont  je  cont  le  conte, 

Et  qui  si  le  contoit  au  conte 

De  Poitiers  qui  amoit  l'estoire 

Et  le  tenoit  en  grant  memoire 

Plus  que  nul  autre  ne  faisoit. 
The  reading  of  Add.  36614,  just  reproduced,  is  clearer  than  the  readings 
of  the  other  MSS.,  but  it  is  possible  that  this  may  be  the  result  of 
an  emendation  on  the  part  of  a  scribe  who  remembered  the  appeal 
made  in  Pseudo-Wauchier,  1.  19434,  to  Bleheris  (Bleobleheris).  In 
any  event,  that  appeal  is  probably  the  source  of  the  present  one. 
I  shall  have  occasion  to  return  to  the  subject  in  trying  to  establish 
the  separate  existence  of  Pseudo-Wauchier  in  a  note  below. 

Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXI2  (1907),  pp.  151  ff., 
XXXVI2  (1910),  187,  I  believe,  is  the  only  scholar,  besides  Miss 
Weston,  who  has  accepted  this  Bleheris  as  a  real  person.  On  the 
other  hand,  ibid.,  pp.  136  ff.,  he  rejects  as  a  hoax  the  appeal  to  a 
conte,  written  at  Fecamp,  which  Miss  Weston,  I,  155,  has  also 
unearthed  in  the  MSS.  of  Wauchier.  There  is  really,  however, 
nothing  to  choose  between  the  two  appeals.  He  identifies,  (p.  158) 
the  Count  of  Poitiers  here  spoken  of  with  the  count  who  was  after- 
wards Henry  II  of  England,  and  dates  the  composition  of  Bleheris' 
supposed  poem  in   the  years  1151  —  1154.     Miss  Weston  (pp.  291  ff.) 


286  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

be  a  genuine  one  and  still  prove  nothing  in  regard  to  the  origin 
of  the  Grail  legend,  for  it  occurs  in  an  episode  that  is  not  connect- 
ed with  the  Grail  and  relates  to  a  minor  character  of  the  poem  — 
viz.  the  Little  Knight  who  guards  the  magic  shield  won  by  Gawain. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is,  in  all  probability,  merely  one  of  the 
customary  fabrications  of  the  mediaeval  poets,  and  Wauchier  was 
here  no  doubt  imitating  the  equally  valueless  appeal  at  the  be- 
ginning of  Thomas'  Tristan  to  an  authority  whose  name,  Breri, 
is  a  variant  of  this  name.  So  Wauchier 's  appeal,  even  in  regard 
to  this  matter,  is,  in  the  opinion  of  most  scholars  (see  Bedier,  Lot, 
Loth,  Smirnov,  etc.),  a  mere  hoax,  and  he  had  no  access  to  any 
early  independent  source  for  the  Grail  theme.  He  was  continuing 
Chretien's  unfinished  work  and  his  version  of  the  story  was,  no 
doubt,  the  product  of  his  own  invention.  The  term,  "invention", 
does  not  exclude,  of  course,  the  application  to  the  Grail  theme  of 
motifs  drawn  from  folk-tales  and  romances  which  stood  outside 
of  that  cycle. 

Miss  We6ton  thinks  that  the  first  step  towards  the  Christiani- 
zation  of  the  originally  pagan  theme  was  the  identification  of  the 


had  identified  him  with  a  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  who  filled  that  office 
983  — 1023.  Assuming  that  Wauchier's  Bleheris  was  a  real  person, 
Brugger's  dating  would  be  preferable,  but,  for  my  own  part,  I  regard 
him  as  a  myth.  —  Since  the  publication  of  Miss  Weston's  and  Brugger's 
discussions  of  the  subject,  Edward  Owen  has  proposed  still  another 
Bledri  for  identification  with  Wauchier's  Bleheris,  viz.  Bledri  ap  Cadivor, 
a  Welsh  chieftain  of  the  early  twelfth  century,  who  seems  to  have 
been  favorable  to  the  Normans  in  Wales.  Cp.  "A  note  on  the  iden- 
tification of  Bleheris,"  Revue  Celtique,  XXXII,  5ff.  (1911).  In  her 
brief  comment  at  the  end  of  her  article,  p.  16,  Miss  Weston  says  that 
the  arguments  are  not  decisive.  Ibid.  XXXIII,  180ff.  (1912),  in  his 
"Bledhericus,  Bleddri,  Breri,"  W.  J.  Gruff  yd  upholds  the  same  thesis 
as  Owen.  —  It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  name  Bleri  occurs  also, 
in  Cornwall:  J.  Loth  cites,  Annates  de  Bretagne,  XI,  480,  from 
Domesday  Book  a  place  named  Tre-Bleri. 

Among  scholars  who  have  expressed  disbelief  in  the  reality  of 
Bleheris,  cp.  J.  Bedier,  edition  of  Tristan  poems,  II,  98,  J.  Loth, 
Les  Mabinogion*,  I,  741,  F.  Lot,  Biblioth&que  de  VEcole  des  Ckartes, 
LXX,  572,  A.  Smirnov,  Romania,  XLHI,  126. 


The  Ritual  Theory  287 

lance  of  the  Grail  ritual  with  the  lance  of  Longinus,  and  that  the 
next  was  the  connection  of  the  Grail  as  a  feeding-vessel  with 
Christian  tradition  through  the  personality  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea 
(p.  117).  She  believes  that  this  connection  was  effected  at  Glaston- 
bury, where,  according  to  her  theory,  Joseph  was  accepted  in  tra- 
dition as  Apostle  of  Britain  and  presumably  a  founder  of  Glaston- 
bury. Here  then  the  Grail  was  first  definitely  associated  with 
Joseph.  But  the  effort  to  connect  Joseph  with  a  relic  of  the 
Sacred  Blood  was  inspired,  she  thinks,  by  the  example  of  the  abbey 
of  Fecamp  in  Northern  France,  where  a  similar  relic  was  associated 
with  Nicodemus,  whose  apocryphal  gospel  was  the  principal  source 
for  the  legend  of  Joseph.  We  have  in  all  this,  however,  a  mere 
deluge  of  hypotheses.  As  we  have  seen,  there  is  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  Joseph  was  ever  connected  with  Glastonbury  until  after 
1191.  When  the  notion  was  first  originated  about  the  presence 
of  a  Sacred  Blood  relic  at  Fecamp14  is  not  known,  and  there  is 
no  proof  whatever  that  the  French  monastery  had  any  influence 
on  the  English  one  —  and  so  with  the  rest  of  it. 

14  Brugger,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXI8,  135 ff.  (1907),  rejects 
Miss  Weston's  theory  of  the  connection  of  Fecamp  with  the  develop- 
ment of  the  Grail  legend  and  commends  Heinzel  who  mentioned  the 
Fecamp  blood-relic  in  commenting  on  a  passage  in  Wolfram  which 
Miss  Weston  (p.  162)  misuses,  (Uber  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach's 
Parzival,  p.  14,  and  Uber  die  franzosischen  Gralromane,  p.  40,), 
but  did  not  draw  the  conclusion  from  its  existence  that  Miss  Weston 
does.  The  mediaeval  documents  concerning  the  blood-relic  at  Fecamp 
do  not  allude  to  such  a  connection,  and  the  general  resemblance  between 
the  Grail  (which  by  this  time  was  conceived  of  as  a  blood-relic)  and 
this  blood-relic  at  Fecamp  was  sufficient,  Brugger  thinks,  to  suggest 
to  Wauchier  an  appeal  to  an  imaginary  book  at  Fecamp  as  the  source 
of  his  Grail  romance.  This  appeal,  on  which  Miss  Weston's  whole 
theory  is  based,  is  found  in  two  lines,  which  are  not  in  the  Mons 
MS.,  and,  consequently,  not  in  Potvin's  edition  of  the  Conte  del  Graal, 
but  which  occur  in  four  MSS.  and  with  a  manifest  error  (Trescamp 
for  Fescamp)  in  a  fifth.  They  are  given  as  follows  in  Miss  Weston's 
Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  155: 

si  com  le  conte  nus  affiche 

qui  a  Fescans  est  tos  escris. 
The   allusion   here   to  Fecamp,    though   it  does  not  appear   in  four  of 
the  MSS.,  is  probably  genuine.    In  the  two  lines  the  author  is  appealing 


288  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Apart  from  the  points  specifically  touched  on  already,  one 
may  say  in  general  that  Miss  Weston's  theory  is  open  to  the  same 
objections  as  Professor  Nitze's  and  to  some  additional  ones,  be- 
sides. The  gap  in  the  historical  tradition  between  the  latest  re- 
cords of  the  Adonis  rites  and  the  first  Grail  romances  is,  of  course, 
virtually  the  same  as  the  gap  between  the  latest  records  of  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries  and  these  same  romances.  Moreover,  stu- 
dents of  the  Holy  Grail  do  not  know  what  are  the  rites  of  the  occult 
sects  of  our  own  day,  much  less  those  of  the  Middle  Ages,  if 
such  practices  did,  indeed,  persist  through  that  period,  so  that 
it  is  impossible  to  control  the  theory.  The  interpretation  of  the 
lance  and  Grail  as  phallic  symbols  seems  especially  fantastic.   Al- 


to the  conte  composed  at  Fecamp  as  his  authority  for  the  story  of 
Perceval's  adventure  at  Mont  Dolerous,  11.  33  900ff. 

Miss  Weston  (p.  156)  imagines  that  this  conte  was  a  real  book 
—  "a  fully  developed  Christian-Grail  romance".  For  my  own  part, 
I  have  no  doubt  that  Brugger  is  right  in  regarding  the  conte  as 
imaginary  and  on  a  par  with  the  other  mediaeval  hoaxes  of  this  kind 
that  he  cites;  but,  even  if  it  were  genuine,  the  lines  would  not  justify 
Miss  Weston's  large  inference,  for  the  Mont  Dolerous  adventure  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  Grail,  except  that  the  hero  is  Perceval,  and 
the  appeal  is  made  with  reference  merely  to  this  adventure,  not  to 
Wauchier's  poem,  as  a  whole.  It  was  suggested,  doubtless,  by  the 
fact  that,  through  the  confraternity  of  jongleurs  there,  Fecamp  was 
actually  a  centre  for  the  production  of  contes.  See  Miss  Weston, 
p.  167,  and  especially,  J.  Bedier,  Romanic  Review,  I,  122  ff.  In  this 
article  (pp.  113ff.),  "Richard  de  Normandie  dans  les  Chansons  de 
Geste",  Bedier  has  shown  how  the  jongleurs  at  Fecamp  were  respon- 
sible for  the  part  played  by  Richard  in  the  Old  French  epic. 

In  connecting  the  Fecamp  blood-relic  with  the  Grail,  Miss  Weston 
had  been  anticipated  by  Le  Roux  de  Lincy,  Essai  sur  I'abbaye  de 
Fecamp,  137  f.  (Rouen,  1840)  and,  secondarily,  by  G.  A.  Heinrich,  Le 
Parceval  de  W.  d'Eschenbach  et  la  Legende  du  Saint  Graal,  77  ff. 
(Paris,  1855).  Blood-relics  (vials  that  are  supposed  to  contain  the 
blood  of  Christ)  are  very  numerous  in  Europe.  Cp.  Hertz:  Parzival, 
p.  454,  and  Wechssler,  Sage  vom  Gral,  pp.  115 f.  Heinzel,  p.  48, 
names  a  number  of  books  on  the  subject  of  such  relics. 

For  an  argument  against  Miss  Weston's  Fecamp  theory,  cp.  also 
F.  Lot,  Bibliotheque  de  VEcole  des  Chartes,  LXX,  572 f.  (including 
note  1   on  p.  573). 


The  Ritual  Theory  289 

together,  of  the  two  kindred  theories,  Nitze's  appears  the  more 
acceptable,  although,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  even 
this  does  not  get  beyond  the  realm  of  ingenious  conjecture. 

Such  similarities  as  may  exist  between  the  Grail  rites  and 
those  of  the  agrarian  cults  of  the  ancients  do  not  conflict,  after 
all,  with  the  theory  that  the  former  were  made  up  of  Christian 
elements  —  for  the  rites  of  the  Christian  church  itself,  as  is 
well-known,  developed  under  the  influence  of  the  old  pagan  mys- 
teries,15 just  as  the  leading  Christian  festivals  are  definitely  trace- 
able to  festivals  of  the  old  /pagan  religions.  This  is  true,  for  in- 
stance, of  Christmas,  Easter  and  the  Feast  of  the  Assumption  of 
the  Virgin.  Accordingly  features  of  the  Grail  theme  which  offer 
analogies  to  these  agrarian  cults  are  found  also  in  Christian  legend, 
which  derived  them  no  doubt  from  those  cults.  For  instance,  just 
as  vegetation  dies  with  Adonis,  so  in  some  Christian  legends  it 
is  said  to  have  died  as  the  result  of  the  death  of  our  Lord.  Simil- 
arly the  lance  of  Longinus  in  Christian  legend  is  not  only  a 
symbol  of  peace,  but,  like  the  lance  of  the  Grail  romances,  a  symbol 
of  destruction. 16  Altogether,  however,  where  we  have  such  features 
common  to  Christian  legend  and  the  ancient  cults,  it  is  much  more 
likely  that  the  Grail  romances  derived  them  from  the  former  than 
from  any  supposed  underground  perpetuation  of  the  latter.  Cer- 
tainly, as  regards  the  Grail  procession,  the  procession  of  talismans, 
we  can  find  parallels  to  all  of  these  in  Christian  ritual,17  whereas 
we  really  know  nothing  definite  about  the  objects  that  figured 
in  the  rites  of  the  agrarian  divinities  of  antiquity.  So  Christian 
ritual  is  far  more  likely  to  have  been  the  immediate  source. 


18  Miss  Peebles,  pp.  200f.  rightly  stresses  this  fact.  Nitze, 
PMLA,  XXIV,  372,  note  1,  and  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL, 
XXXVI a,  69,  recognize  it,  but  do  not  give  it,.  I  believe,  its  due  weight 
in  its  bearing  on  the  eucharistic  origin  of  the  Grail  legend. 

ie  Cp.  Miss  Peebles,  p.  192  and  note. 

17  Cp.  Heinzel,  pp.  7ff. 


Chapter  IV. 
Continuations  of  Chretien. 

Chretien's  unfinished  Perceval  was  carried  on  by  later 
poets,  and  these  continuations1  combined  are  about  five  times  as 
long  as  the  original  poem.  The  poets  who  are  responsible  for 
the  continuations  are  as  follows.  1.  An  anonymous  writer, 
usually  called  in  discussions  of  these  matters  Pseudo-Gautier  or 
Pseudo-Wauchier.  His  work  which  relates  Gawain's  adventures  ex- 
tends   through  1.   21916.     2.   Wauchier  de  Denain2  (to  employ 


1  For  a  study  of  the  MSS.  of  the  continuations  see  Hugo  Waitz, 
Die  Fortsetzungen  von  Chretien's  Perceval  le  Gallois  nach  den 
Pariser  Handschriften  (Strafcburg,  1890),  and  J.  L.  Weston,  Legend 
of  Sir  Perceval,  II.  27ff.  et  passim,  (London,  1906).  The  MSS. 
vary  considerably.  For  differences  of  view  between  Waitz  and  Miss 
Weston   as   to  the  priority   of  the   redactions   see  the  latter,   pp.  47  f. 

*  His  work  was  formerly  cited  generally  under  the  name  of 
Gaucher  de  Dourdan  or  Gautier  de  Doulens,  but  P.  Meyer,  Romania, 
XXXII,  583 ff.  (1903),  has  established  Wauchier  de  Denain  as  the 
correct  form.  For  MS.  variants  of  the  name  see  Potvin's  Perceval 
le  Gallois,  V,  109,  note  2,  Birch-Hirschfeld,  pp.  881,  and  P.  Meyer, 
loc.  cit.,  p.  585.  For  Wauchier 's  literary  activities  see  P.  Meyer, 
Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France,  XXXIII,  258ff.  (1906). 

Birch-Hirschfeld,  pp.  89 ff.,  and  Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir 
Perceval,  II,  235  et  passim,  regard  the  first  continuation  of  Chretien, 
which  I  have  ascribed  above  to  Pseudo-Wauchier,  as  really  by  Wauchier. 
Miss  Weston  excepts  apparently  (cp.  p.  214,  note)  11.  10602 — 11596 
(Chastel  Merveilleus  episode),  as  the  work  of  "the  copyists".  It  seems 
to  me  more  likely,  however,  that  Wauchier's  work  only  begins  with 
the  narrative  of  Perceval's  adventures  —  that  is  to  say,  with  1.  21917. 
This  view  has  been  held  by  G.  Paris,  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France, 
XXX,  27,  and  Manuel,  p.  98,  Nutt,  pp.  70 ff.,  Schorbach,  edition  of 
Wisse-Colin's  Low  German  fourteenth  century  version  of  the  Perceval. 
(Strassburg,  1888),    pp.  XXXV,    XXXVIIIf.,    W.  Golther,    Zs.  f   ver- 


Continuations  of  Chretien  291 

the  form  of  the  name  which  is  now  common),  who  continues  it 
through  1.  34934.     He  appears  to  have  been  at  one  time  in  the 


gleichende  Litteraturgeschichte,  Neue  Folge,  III,  419  (1890),  R. 
Heinzel,  Uber  die  franzosischen  Gralromane,  p.  58  (good  summary 
of  the  argument  therefor)  and  A.  Jeanroy,  Revue  des  Langues  Romanes, 
L,  542,  note  (1907).  It  is  borne  out  by  the  Berne  MS.,  which,  after 
an  introduction  of  13  lines,  begins  at  this  point.  See  A.  Rochat: 
Uber  einen  bisher  unbekannten  Percheval  li  Galois  (Zurich,  1855). 
Interpolations,  too,  are  much  more  frequent  in  Pseudo-Wauchier.  Besides 
those  printed  as  such  by  Potvin  in  appendices,  III,  369 ff.  and  IV, 
343 ff.,  the  description  of  the  tournament,  11.  13481  — 14943  (not  in 
the  Mons  MS.),  which  is  one  of  the  feeblest  things  in  Arthurian 
romance,  certainly  belongs  in  this  category.  It  is  to  be  observed, 
moreover,  that  Wauchier  and  Pseudo-Wauchier  conflict  in  their  con- 
ceptions of  the  Grail  castle,  and  scarcely  harmonize  in  their  use  of 
the  Bellnconnu  tale.  Cp.  particularly  20380ff.  and  38401ff.,  respective- 
ly, where  Wauchier  takes  no  account  of  what  Pseudo-Wauchier  had 
said  of  this  son  of  Gawain.  G.  Paris,  Manuel,  p.  105,  believed,  indeed, 
that  Wauchier  was  unacquainted  with  Pseudo-Wauchier's  work.  But 
this  is  refuted  by  the  undeniable  dependence  of  the  account,  11.  33440 ff. 
which  Gawain  gives  to  his  son,  Guinglain,  of  his  visit  to  the  Grail 
Castle  (including  the  circumstances  that  led  up  to  it)  on  the  account 
(11.  19664 ff.)  of  the  same  episode  in  Pseudo-Wauchier.  Cp.  Heinzel, 
pp.  52f. 

The  only  reasons  which  Miss  Weston  gives,  I,  235,  for  discarding 
Pseudo-Wauchier  are:  1.  that  the  Gawain  adventures  in  the  two  parts 
are  of  the  same  kind;  2.  both  refer  to  the  same  authority  (Bleheris). 
The  first  statement,  however,  is  not  quite  exact,  for  in  Wauchier  we 
have  no  adventure  imputed  to  Gawain  like  the  visit  of  this  character 
to  the  Grail  castle  in  Pseudo-Wauchier,  11.  1999 Iff.,  and,  in  general, 
the  adventures  in  the  Arthurian  romances  are  so  much  alike  in  kind 
that  obviously  the  similarity  would  afford  no  criterion  of  authorship. 
The  second  point  has  been  found  convincing  by  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXI2,  141.  But  granting  that  the  citation  of  "Bleheris" 
as  an  authority  (instead  of  the  corresponding  "li  escris"  of  the  Mons 
MS.,  printed  by  Potvin,  1.  31 675),  which  occurs  only  in  the  British 
Museum  Add.  36,  614  (for  the  readings  of  this  and  the  other  MSS. 
cp.  Miss  Weston  in  Romania,  XXXIV,  100f.),  is  really  due  to  Wauchier, 
and  is  not  simply  a  scribe's  emendation  of  a  passage  that  had  become 
corrupt  in  the  MS.  tradition,  it  may  have  been  very  well  suggested 
to  him  by  Pseudo-Wauchier's  citation  of  this  same  authority  in  1.  19434, 
where   the  Mons  MS.   (printed  by  Potvin,  III,  344)   has  "Brandelis", 


292  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

service  of  the  Countess  Jeanne  of  Flanders,  who  ruled  from  1206 
to  1244,  but  the  composition  of  his  part  of  the  Conte  del  Graal 
probably  falls  in  the  twelfth  century.  Wauchier's  work  was  itself 
continued  by  two  different  writers,  who  each  take  up  the  narra- 
tive at  the  point  where  he  left  off.  These  writers  are  named  respec- 
tively Manessier  (Manecier)  and  Gerbert.  3.  Manessier,  who  wrote 
at  the  command  of  the  Countess  Jeanne  of  Flanders,  mentioned 
above,  carries  it  on  to  1.  45379.  4.  Gerbert,  who  seems  identical 
with  Gerbert  de  Montreuil,  author  of  the  Roman  de  la  Violette* 
inserts  15,000  lines  between  Wauchier  and  Manessier.  To  this 
day,  Gerbert's  intercalation  has  been  printed  only  in  part,  viz. 
Potvin,  VI,  161  ff.  and  Romania,  XXXV,  501  ff.  (the  episode 
which  Bedier  calls  Tristan  Menestrel). 

As  regards  the  dates  of  these  continuators,  we  have  no  precise 
evidence  on  the  subject.4    We  know  that  Wauchier  was  writing 


but  the  other  MSS.  have  "Bleheris"  or  "Bleobleheris",  as  Miss  Weston 
(I,  241,  including  note)  has  pointed  out.  From  what  has  just  been 
observed  in  the  preceding  paragraph,  it  is  established  beyond  question 
that  Wauchier  was  acquainted  with  Pseudo-Wauchier's  work. 

3  The  identity,  first  suggested  by  Francisque  Michel,  in  his  edition 
of  the  Tristan  poems,  I,  p.  civ,  note  75,  has  been  generally  accepted 
since.  Cp.  Birch-Hirschfeld,  Die  Sage  vom  Graal,  pp.  110ff.?  G.  Paris, 
Manuel,  p.  106,  Kraus,  Uber  Girbert  de  Montreuil  und  seine  Werke 
(Wurzburg  diss.,  Erlangen,  1897),  Maurice  Wilmotte,  in  the  proceedings 
of  the  Academie  Royale  de  Belgique  for  1900:  Bulletin  de  la  Classe 
des  Lettres,  etc.,  pp.  166 — 189.  The  last-named  is  much  the  most 
important  discussion  of  the  subject.  Wilmotte  lays  particular  stress 
on  the  abundance  of  leonine  rhymes  which  distinguish  the  two  among 
the  poems  of  the  time,  and  decides  that  there  are  "de  serieuses  pro- 
babilites"  in  favor  of  the  identity. 

The  Roman  de  la  Violette  is  based  on  the  same  motif  as 
Shakespeare's  Cymbeline  —  the  foolish  wager  about  a  woman's  chastity 
that  has  such  serious  consequences. 

The  most  careful  examination  of  the  question  is  by  E.  Brugger, 
Zs.  f  frz.  Sjyr.  u.  LitL,  XXXVI2,  45  ff.  (1910).  Brugger,  however, 
takes  no  account  of  Wilmotte's  paper  on  Gerbert  which  I  have  cited 
in  the  previous  note.  In  this  paper  the  author  has  pointed  out  that 
in  the  "lutte  de  Tristan"  episode  (Tristan  prevails  in  succession  over 
Gifflet,   Lancelot,    Yvain    and    Gawain),    which    occupies    about    1500 


Continuations  of  Chretien  293 

at  some  time  between  1190  and  1212  (limits  of  the  rule  of  Phi- 
lip, Marquis  of  Namur,  for  whom  he  executed  a  translation  of  the 
Vitae  Patrum),  how  much  earlier  or  how  much  later  there  is  no 
means  of  determining.  It  is  most  probable,  however,  that  his  ad- 
dition to  Chretien's  Perceval  belongs  to  the  latter  years  of  the 


lines  in  Gerbert's  continuation,  though  it  hardly  figures  at  all  in  Pot- 
vin's  analysis,  Gerbert  had  in  mind  the  prose  Tristan.  There  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  that  work  was  in  existence  before  1220,  at  the 
earliest,  so  that  this  would  give  us  a  new  terminus  a  quo  for  Ger- 
bert's addition  to  Chretien's  poem. 

In  Romania,  XXXV,  497ff.  (1906)  Bedier  has  edited  this  "lutte 
de  Tristan"  episode  and  Miss  Weston  has  added  notes.  She  regards 
it  as  an  interpolation  embodying  lost  materials:  1.  a  Perceval  poem, 
2.  a  short  episodic  Tristan  poem.  The  names,  however,  in  the  episode 
betray  the  lateness  of  its  composition:  "Meraugis"  from  Meraugis  de 
Portlesguez,  "Koi  des  C.  Chevaliers"  and  "Claudas  de  la  Deserte" 
from  the  prose  Lancelot.  So  too  probably  "Bruns  sans  Pitie"  is  taken 
from  the  prose  Lancelot."  Besides,  Tristan,  as  a  conventional  knight, 
derives  plainly  from  the  prose  Tristan  (cp.  Loseth,  pp.  256 f.).  not 
from  any  old  tradition.  —  Golther,  Tristan  und  Isolde,  p.  226  ff.  is 
inclined  to  accept  the  existence  of  no.  2. 

Gerbert  states,  Potvin,  VI,  212 f.  that  he  has  taken  up  the  work 
(i.  e.  of  continuing  Chretien's  Perceval),  "Quant  chascuns  trovere  le 
laisse."  Brugger,  loc.  cit.,  p.  52,  interprets  this  as  implying  that  he 
did  not  know  of  Manessier's  continuation,  and,  consequently,  that  he 
wrote  contemporaneously  with  the  latter  or  immediately  thereafter. 
This  interpretation,  to  be  sine,  is  not  necessary,  and  the  fact  over- 
looked by  Brugger  that  Gerbert  wrote  after  the  prose  Tristan  tells 
against  his  conclusion.  G.  Paris,  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la  France, 
XXX,  42,  believes  that  Gerbert  is  unacquainted  with  Manessier.  Heinzel, 
on  the  other  hand,  pp.  75  f.,  has  argued  that  Gerbert  knew  all  the 
continuations  of  Chretien's  Perceval.  All  the  points  of  distinctive 
agreement  between  Gerbert  and  Manessier  which  he  cites  (p.  76)  are 
unsatisfactory.  The  first  of  the  three,  indeed,  is  cited  by  Heinzel 
through  an  error,  for  the  passage  (11.  29682 ff.)  really  occurs  in  Wauchier, 
not  Manessier.  It  concerns  the  adventure  of  a  knight  in  a  tomb.  The 
second  (the  breaking  of  Perceval's  sword)  is  too  commonplace  to 
possess  any  weight,  and  the  third  (temptation  of  Perceval  by  a  devil 
in  woman's  shape)  may  very  well  have  been  borrowed  by  Gerbert 
from  the  Grand  S.  Graal.  On  the  whole,  there  is  no  proof  that 
Gerbert  knew  Manessier. 


294  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

twelfth  century.  The  limits  of  Manessier's  date  are  1211 — 1244, 
with  the  probabilities  in  favor  of  the  first  half  of  this  period.  Ger- 
bert's  work  should,  doubtless,  be,  also,  assigned  to  this  period. 

In  discussions  of  the  origins  of  the  Grail  legend,  the  greatest 
mischief,  in  the  judgment  of  the  present  writer,  has  resulted  from 
the  use  of  these  continuations,  as  if  they  were  original  authorities 
that  drew  directly  from  Chretien's  source,  independently  of  him, 
or  perhaps  from  sources  that  he  did  not  know.  This  has  been  the 
fault  even  of  some  advocates  of  the  theory  of  Christian  origins 
(e.g.  Heinzel),  but  still  more  of  the  opponents  of  that  theory.  Miss 
Weston,  indeed,  takes  Wauchier  as  the  best  authority  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Grail.  She  believes  that  he,  too,  had  access  to  the  lime 
that  Count  Philip  gave  to  Chretien,  only  she  thinks  that  Wauchier 
preserves  better  the  character  of  the  book  in  question  than  Chretien 
did.5  But  we  have  seen  that  she  also  believes  in  Breri,  who  is, 
in  all  probability,  merely  one  of  the  innumerable  hoaxes  of  the 
writers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  a  bold  citation  of  authority 
was  sufficient  to  quell  all  doubters,  save  perhaps  a  few  invincible 
skeptics.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  one  may  safely  affirm  that  Wauchier 
knew  nothing  of  the  Grail,  except  what  he  found  in  Chretien's 
fragmentary  poem,  and  Manessier  and  Gerbert  were  in  the  same 
case6  —  only  they  had  Wauchier 's  and  Pseudo-Wauchier's  con- 
tinuations, besides,  to  furnish  suggestions  to  their  imaginations. 

As  regards  the  contents  of  these  continuations,  Wauchier's 
work,  like  Chretien's,  offers  us  in  alternation  adventures  of  Perceval 
and  adventures  of  Gawain.  But  the  adventures  of  the  latter  here, 
besides  being  of  the  most  commonplace  character,  make  up  not 
quite  a  fourth  of  the  whole,  and  they  are  subordinated  to  the  ad- 
ventures of  the  former,  as  they  are  not  in  Chretien's  Perceval, 
for  in  Wauchier  they  are  all  incidents  in  a  quest  of  Gawain  for 
Perceval.   On  the  other  hand,  the  continuation  of  Pseudo-Wauchier 

6  Cp.  her  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  323 ff. 
This  accords,  of  course,  with  Golther's  opinion.  Cp.  especially, 
p.  420  of  his  article,  ''Beziehungen  zwischen  franzosischer  imd  keltischer 
Litteratur  im  Mittelalter",  Zs.  f.  vergleichende  Litteraturgeschichte. 
Neue  Folge,  III,  409ff.  (1890).  Similarly,  Foerster,  Chretien  Wbrter- 
buch,  p.  185*  (1914). 


Continuations  of  Chretien  295 

relates  wholly  to  adventures  of  Gawain,  including  one  at  the  Grail 
castle.  The  poet,  however,  makes  it  plain  that  Gawain  is  not  the 
destined  Grail  Winner,  for  he  cannot  put  together  the  pieces  of 
the  broken  sword,  and,  besides  omitting  to  ask  about  the  Grail,  he 
falls  asleep  before  he  has  received  an  explanation  of  any  of  the 
other  objects,  save  the  lance. 

In  order  to  introduce  the  Grail  episode  into  his  narrative,  the 
author  has  used  an  incident  in  Chretien's  Perceval  (11.  4380 ff.) 
which  in  that  poem  had  had  no  connection  with  it  —  viz.  the 
one  in  which  Gawain  by  his  courtesy  brings  Perceval  to  Arthur, 
after  the  latter  (Perceval)  had  unhorsed  Kay  for  rudely  inter- 
rupting him  in  his  revery  about  his  lady-love.  In  Pseudo-Wauchier 
the  unnamed  knight  who  is  brought  back  to  Guinevere  turns  out 
to  be  mortally  wounded  with  a  dart  and  dies  as  he  reaches  the 
queen's  tent.  Equipped  in  the  dead  man's  armor,  Gawain  goes 
forth  to  avenge  him  on  the  unknown  slayer  and  in  the  course 
of  his  wanderings  stumbles  by  chance  on  the  Grail  castle7  to 
which  the  slain  knight,  it  seems,  belonged.  Despite  some  clumsiness 
and  inconsistency  in  detail,  the  air  of  mystery  and  the  suggestion 
of  the  supernatural  are  well  maintained  throughout  the  whole  epi- 
sode, —  as,  for  example,  in  the  incident  of  the  forest  chapel  upon 
which  Gawain  comes  in  the  depths  of  the  night  and  whose  brilliant 
lights  he  sees  extinguished  by  a  bodiless  black  hand  and  in  that 
of  the  elusive  light  which  finally  guides  his  horse  through  the 
darkness  to  the  Grail  castle.  So,  too,  with  the  scenes  in  the  hall 
of  the  Grail  castle  —  the  people's  mistaking  Gawain  for  the  slain 
knight  whose  return  they  are  expecting  and  whose  armor  Gawain 
has  on,  the  procession  of  the  canons  and  their  service  over  the 
mysterious  dead  man,  whose  bier  lies  in  the  hall,  with  the  cross 

7  The  castle  is  out  in  the  sea  and  is  reached  by  a  long  causeway, 
which  it  took  Gawain  from  nightfall  to  midnight  to  traverse.  Conse- 
quently Brown  observes,  Kittredge  Anniversary  Papers,  p.  247,  that 
"the  castle  of  the  Grail  was,  in  a  more  original  form  of  the  story,  an 
under -wave -abode".  But  this  is,  surely,  a  far-fetched  inference. 
Mediaeval  castles  were  often  thus  situated,  for  better  protection,  and, 
as  far  as  the  length  of  the  causeway  is  concerned,  the  whole  conception 
of  the  Grail  castle  belongs,  of  course,  to  fairy-land. 


296  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  the  fragment  of  a  sword  on  the  body,  the  moments  that 
follow,  when  Gawain,  with  his  face  in  his  hands,  sits  alone  in  the 
hall,  with  the  corpse  —  then,  the  return  of  the  throng,  with  the 
Grail  King,  who  wears  a  crown  of  gold  and  who,  unlike  Chretien's 
Grail  King,  is  able  to  walk.  The  poet  has  undoubtedly  caught 
here  the  spirit  of  a  folk-tale  more  distinctively  than  Chretien  in 
his  corresponding  description,  only  in  the  legitimate  endeavor  to 
gain  the  effect  of  mystery  he  commits  some  blunders  and  leaves 
the  narrative  in  certain  particulars  unnecessarily  obscure.  But 
these  obscurities  are,  no  doubt,  due  mainly  to  the  fact  that,  like 
Chretien  and  Wauchier,  Pseudo-Wauchier  did  not  finish  his  tale. 
Just  as  in  the  episode  which  follows  upon  this  one  and  which 
is  strikingly  similar  to  it  in  the  central  motif  —  the  unknown 
dead  man  who  lies  on  a  bier  in  the  hall  with  a  broken  weapon  (the 
truncheon  of  the  spear  still  in  his  body)  and  whose  death  calls 
for  vengeance  —  he  wraps  the  initial  scene  in  the  utmost  mystery. 
He  does,  however,  complete  this  later  episode,  and  so  what  at 
first  seemed  to  be  an  impenetrable  mystery  is  in  the  end  satisfactor- 
ily cleared  up.  We  should,  doubtless,  have  had  the  same  result 
in  the  case  of  the  earlier  episode,  if  the  author  had  not  left  it  un- 
finished. Perhaps  the  most  fateful  innovation  which  marks  this 
description  of  the  Grail  castle  in  Pseudo-Wauchier  is  the  con- 
ception of  the  broken  sword.  In  Chretien  (11.  3092ff.),  when 
Perceval  visited  the  Grail  castle,  the  Grail  King  (Fisher  King) 
presented  him  with  the  espee  as  estranges  renges  (1.  4674)  which 
had  been  given  him  by  his  niece,  la  sore  pucfele  (1.  3107).  It  was 
there  said  that  this  sword  would  break  in  only  one  peril,  and 
nobody  knew  what  that  was,  save  the  person  who  forged  the  weap- 
on. Later  (11.  3622  ff.)  Perceval's  cousin  warns  him  that  the 
sword  will  fly  in  pieces  when  Perceval  enters  a  combat,  but  that 
the  smith  who  forged  it  (Trebuchet)  can  mend  it  again.8  Manifestly 


For  the  MS.  readings  of  the  passages  in  question  cp.  Miss 
Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  1-33  ff.  The  interpolations,  found 
in  certain  MSS.,  which  she  discusses,  pp.  137ff.,  have  no  importance. 
They  originated,  obviously,  in  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  scribes  to 
harmonize  Chretien  and  Pseudo-Wauchier. 


Contimijations  of  Chretien  297 

Chretien  was  preparing  the  way  here  for  an  intended  episode  in  his 
Perceval  which  he  never  reached.  Pseudo-Wauchier,  however, 
adopted  the  hint  and  exploited  this  sword  of  the  Grail  castle  for 
his  own  narrative.9  Half  of  it  lay  on  the  corpse  in  the  hall,  the 
other  half  of  it  had  been  in  the  possession  of  the  knight  who  was 
killed  so  mysteriously  near  the  queen's  tent  and  whose  death  Ga- 
wain  had  set  forth  to  avenge.  Gawain  had  carried  it  to  the  Grail 
castle,  it  would  seem,  as  a  part  of  the  dead  knight's  equipment, 
which  he  was  wearing,  and  when  he  laid  aside  this  equipment 
on  his  arrival  there,  the  lord  of  the  Grail  castle  took  the  sword 
and  brought  it  in  for  the  test  of  Gawain' s  fitness  to  undo  the  spell 
which  rested  on  the  land  of  the  Grail.  This  conception  of  the  broken 
sword,  as  thus  developed  by  Pseudo-Wauchier,  had  a  great  success, 
and  with  various  modifications  of  setting,  etc.  turns  up  in  all 
subsequent  romances  of  the  Grail  cycle,  and  in  the  other  con- 
tinuations of  Chretien  eclipses  the  question  concerning  the  Grail 
in   importance. 

Not  so  successful,  however,  were  certain  other  innovations  of 
this  writer  —  for  example,  his  discarding  of  the  Grail  procession  and 
of  the  epithets  of  the  lord  of  the  Grail  castle,  "Fisher  King"  and 
"Rich  Fisher".  The  imposing  procession  and  these  romantic  titles 
of  the  Grail  lord  proved,  naturally,  too  attractive  to  later  roman- 
cers. In  Pseudo-Wauchier  we  have  Chretien's  feast  in  the  hall 
of  the  Grail  castle  (11.  3237 ff.),  but  without  his  procession.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  author  has  the  unlucky  idea  of  making  the 
Grail  supply  the  food  and  wine  at  this  banquet.10    So  the  table 


9  There  is  do  need  of  resorting  to  the  constantly  recurring  theory 
of  lost  sources  here.  The  mediaeval  romancers  did  not  feel  the  awe 
of  the  Grail  that  some  modern  scholars  seem  to  feel.  The  author  of 
Sone  de  Nausay  (late  thirteenth  century)  added  (11.  17065ff.)  to  the 
Grail  relics  a  piece  of  the  true  cross  and  a  candlestick  which  had 
done  duty  at  the  birth  of  Christ.  What  this  writer  did,  a  writer  of 
a  somewhat  earlier  time  surely  would  not  have  shrunk  from  doing. 

10  The  idea  that  the  Grail  possessed  the  magical  quality  of 
supplying  unending  sustenance  is  met  with  first  in  Pseudo-Wauchier. 
In  Robert's  Joseph  the  conception  is  somewhat  different.  There  Joseph 
of  Arimathea  lives  for  years  in  prison  without  food  or  drink,   and,  at 


298  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

is  set  in  regular  fashion,  and  yet  the  Grail,  in  some  unexplained 
manner,  furnishes  the  courses.  Nothing  could  be  more  awkward. 
The  author  wanted  to  vary  the  scene  in  the  Grail  castle,  but  he 
fails  to  give  the  marvellous  vessel  any  organic  connection  with 
the  incidents  that  surround  it.  The  way  in  which  he  disposes  of 


the  same  time,  he  has  the  Grail  with  him,  but  Robert  does  not  ascribe 
his  hero's  preservation  to  any  sustenance  furnished  by  this  sacred  vessel. 
It  is  merely  said  that  that  was  due  to  the  help  of  God  (11.  731  ff.) 
or  Jesus  (11.  2620ff.).  Furthermore,  in  the  passage  about  the  Grail 
table,  it  is  really  the  fish,  caught  by  Bron  (cp.  11.  2495  ff.),  which 
(as  in  the  Bible  account  of  Christ's  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes) 
supplies  miraculous  subsistence  to  the  people.  The  Grail  is  present, 
so  to  speak,  merely  as  the  representative  of  Christ,  through  whom  the 
miracle  is  wrought. 

The  conception  of  a  magical  object  (table,  vessel,  or  what  not) 
with  food-producing  powers  is  common  in  folk-lore.  For  innumerable 
examples  from  every  part  of  the  world  see  Anmerkungen  zu  den 
Kinder-  und  Hausmarchen  der  Briider  Grimm,  neu  bearbeitet  von 
Johannes  Bolte  und  Georg  Polivka,  I,  346  ff.  (Leipzig,  1912). 

Pseudo  -  Wauchier,  who  was  continuing  Chretien's  work,  like 
Chretien,  of  course,  identified  the  Grail  with  the  vessel  that  contained 
the  bread  of  the  sacrament,  and  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the  sacra- 
ment which  afforded  sustenance  to  the  spirit  could  also  afford  miraculous 
sustenance  to  the  body.  Miss  L.  A.  Fisher  has  cited  an  actual  example 
of  this  from  Caesarius  of  Heisterbach's  Dialogus  Miraculorum, 
Distinctio  IX,  exemplum  XLVII  (not  XL VI,  as  she  gives  it),  in  her 
The  Mystic  Vision  in  the  Grail  Legend  and  the  Divine  Comedy, 
p.  81  (New  York,  1917),  and  investigation  would,  doubtless,  reveal 
still  other  instances.  In  any  event,  as  Miss  Fisher,  loc.  tit,  observes, 
the  constant  connection  in  Christian  literature  (beginning  with  St.  John, 
VI,  49  f.)  of  the  eucharist  with  the  Old  Testament  manna  miracle,  and, 
still  further,  with  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  and  fishes  and  with  that 
of  Cana  in  the  New  Testament  makes  this  conception  of  the  life- 
sustaining  power  of  the  sacrament  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 

Chretien  (11.  3187ff.)  had  already  attached  a  fairytale  motif  to 
the  Grail  —  viz.  its  marvellous  luminosity.  This  is  one  of  the  com- 
monest qualities  of  marvellous  objects  in  folk-tales.  To  be  sure,  this 
quality  was  sometimes  ascribed  to  the  eucharist  in  mediaeval  writers. 
Cp.  Miss  Fisher,  pp.  77 f.  It  is  ascribed  to  the  Grail,  also,  by  Robert 
de  Boron,  Joseph,  11.  719,  2031  f. ;  but,  as  stated  above,  this  was 
probably  suggested  by  the  Gesta  Pilati. 


Continuations  of  Chretien  299 

the  lance  is  equally  unhappy.  Having  abandoned  the  idea  of  the 
procession,  he  represents  the  lance  as  resting  in  a  lance-holder  in 
the  hall  and  the  blood  as  running  down  the  shaft  from  the  steel 
head  and  through  a  golden  tube,  fixed  to  the  handle,  into  a  silver 
vessel,  whence  it  flowed  still  further  through  a  tube  of  silver  — 
into  what  is  not  stated.  This  lance,  as  the  Grail  King  tells  Ga- 
wain  expressly  (11.  20259ff.),  is  the  one  with  which  the  side 
of  the  Son  of  God  was  pierced  (on  the  cross).  So  to  the  writer 
it  was  a  Christian  relic,  as  was,  doubtless,  the  Grail,  though  in 
the  author's  fragmentary  narrative  the  latter  is  left  undefined. 
New,  too,  in  Pseudo-Wauchier  is  the  conception  of  the  blight- 
ed land.  In  Chretien  there  is  nothing  of  this  kind.  There,  to  be 
sure,  Perceval's  failure  to  ask  the  question  which  would  have  healed 
the  wound  of  the  lame  Grail  King  will  have,  also,  the  effect  of 
bringing  unmeasured  calamities  upon  the  realm  of  the  Grail  castle 
(11.  4637ff.),  but,  apart  from  the  fact  that  these  calamities  lie 
in  the  future,  there  is  nothing  supernatural  about  them.  Here, 
however,  the  land  goes  to  waste  under  an  evil  spell,  which  is 
partly  undone  by  Gawain's  question  concerning  the  lance,  the  sword 
and  the  bier.  Accordingly,  the  following  day  the  waters  ran 
again,  the  forests  regained  their  verdure  and  the  people  blessed 
him,  as  he  passed,  for  having  brought  them  such  relief.  At  the 
same  time,  they  blamed  him  for  not  asking  concerning  the  Grail, 
which  would  have  completed  the  restoration  of  the  "roiauine 
destruit".  This  conception  of  the  land  that  becomes  a  desert  under 
a  spell  which  a  certain  question  will  undo  is,  of  course,  derived 
from  folklore,  but  it  does  not  appear  in  Chretien,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  that,  like  the  revenge  motif  y  it  was  an  original 
contribution  of  Pseudo-Wauchier's  to  the  development  of  the  Grail 
legend.11 

Nutt  regards  the  revenge  motif  as  already  connected  in  popular 
tradition  with  a  Grail-quest.  Indeed,  in  his  view  (pp.  181  ff.),  all 
stories  about  the  Grail  quest  fall  into  two  classes,  whose  essential 
motifs  are  respectively:  1.  the  avenging  of  a  kinsman  in  a  blood  feud 
by  means  of  sword,  lance  and  vessel,  2.  the  bespelled  castle  motif 
But  two  of  the  Grail  stories  of  the  first  category,  Manessier's  and 
Peredur,    derive  from  Pseudo-Wauchier.     The   third,  Sir  Percyvelle, 


300  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

There  are  still  other  striking  episodes  in  this  first  continuation 
to  Chretien's  Perceval  —  for  example,  the  one  which  I  have  already 
mentioned  above  and  which  shows  contamination  with  the  tale 
of  the  Swan  Knight,  viz.  that  of  the  dead  man  who  was  brought 
over  the  sea  to  Camelot  in  a  ship,  drawn  by  a  swan.  It  is  a  night 
of  heat  and  storm,  and  Arthur,  who  is  seated  by  a  window,  seeing 
the  strange  vessel,  goes  down  and,  on  entering  it,  finds  there  the 
dead  body  of  a  handsome  knight,  richly  dressed  and  embalmed, 
with  a  spear  still  fixed  in  it.  A  letter  in  the  dead  man's  hand 
contains  the  request  that  Arthur  should  permit  the  body  to  rest 
in  his  hall  and  refuse  to  let  any  body  remove  the  spear  from  the 
wound  for  a  year,  if  necessary,  unless  some  one  should  appear  to 
avenge  the  slain  man  on  certain  fantastic  conditions,  that  seem 
impossible  of  fulfilment.  Kahares  (Guerehes),  a  brother  of  Ga- 
wain,   however,  achieves  the  adventure. 

Among  the  most  interesting  stories  in  this  continuation  are  those 
that  are  attached  to  the  name  of  the  Celtic  hero,  Caradoc,  and 
which  constitute  the  so-called  Livre  de  Caradoc  in  this  division 
of  the  Conte  del  Grtml.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  however,  that 
this  group  of  stories  is  interpolated  and  that  it  is  not  by  the  same 
hand  as  the  bulk  of  the  first  continuation.  The  Livre  de  Caradoc 
contains  three  well  known  motifs: 

1.  The  arrival  of  a  mysterious  stranger  with  a  head-cutting 
challenge  (as  in  the  Middle  English  romance  Sir  Gawain  and  the 
Green  'Knight)  —  he  will  submit  to  decapitation  now,  if  the 
knight  who  accepts  the  challenge  will  submit  to  the  same  process 
a  year  hence. 

2.  A  variant  of  The  Faithless  Mother  folk-tale,  involving  an 
account  of  how  Caradoc  was  relieved  through  the  devotion  of  his 


probably  adopted  it  from  the  Bliocadrans-prologue ;  but  this  romance 
does  not  connect  it  with  the  Grail,  for  it  omits  the  Grail  altogether. 
I  have  discussed  the  sources  of  these  romances  in  the  appropriate  places. 
It  is  misleading  when  Heinz  el,  pp.  52,  75,  says  that  Gautier  and 
Gerbert  show  this  revenge  motif.  We  have  such  a  motif  in  their 
works,  but  it  has  no  immediate  connection  with  the  achievement  of 
the  Grail  adventure. 


Continuations  of  Chretien  301 

wife,  Guimier,  from  the  affliction  of  a  serpent  that  had  fastened 
itself  on  his  arm.12 

3.  The  chastity  test  by  means  of  the  drinking-horn,  which 
proves  that  only  Caradoc,  of  all  the  knights  at  Arthur's  court, 
could  boast  of  a  ehaste  wife. 

These  famous  motifs  were  all  ultimately  derived  from  folk- 
tales, as,  indeed,  the  folk-tale  stamp  of  its  incidents  is  the  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  of  the  Livre  de  Caradoc. 

The  continuation  of  Pseudo-Wauchier  cannot  claim,  of  course, 
to  be  a  very  highly  developed  work  of  art,  but,  if  we  exclude  ob- 
vious interpolations,  such  as  the  description  of  the  tourney,  11 
1348 Iff.,  what  remains  is,  in  my  opinion,  the  most  readable  of 
the  French  metrical  romances  of  the  Arthurian  cycle,  with  the 
exception  of  Chretien's  works  and  the  Tristan  fragments.  It  is 
hard  to  parallel  in  these  romances  such  a  range  of  power  as  is 
exhibited  here,  on  the  one  hand,  in  the  vigorous  duel  of  Gawain 
and  Brandelis13  (11.  17729ff.),  which  the  sister  of  the  latter  ends 
by  bringing  in  the  child  of  herself  and  Gawain  and  appealing  on  its 
behalf  to  the  compassion  of  the  combatants,  on  the  other,  in  the 
charming  scene  (11.  19595 ff.)  where  the  ladies,14  preparing  to 
meet  Gawain's  "amie",  who  has  just  arrived  at  court,  pass  judg- 
ment on  each  other's  appearance,  before  going  into  her  presence. 


12 
18 


See  pp.  89  ff.,  above. 

Brugger,  Zs.f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.}  XXXI2,   144,  well  charac- 
terizes this  as  one  of  the  grandest  passages  in  Old  French  literature. 
Adont  les  veissies  pinier 
Par  cest  castel  et  aplanier 
Ces  dames  et  ces  damoiseles, 
La  roinne  et  les  puceles. 
L'une  faisoit  son  cief  trecier, 
Et  l'autre  son  coste  lacier; 
La  tierce  dist:   "Sour,  suis-je  bienV" 
"A  vous,  fait-ele,  ne  faut  rien; 
Et  a  moi,  coment  en  est  pris?" 
"Vos  iestes  bien,  ce  m'est  avis." 
Li  quarte  si  dist  d'autre  part: 
"Damoisele,  se  Diex  vous  gart, 
Sui-jou  ore  bien  coulouree?" 
"Oil,  plus  que  riens  qui  soit  nee." 


302  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Wauchier  is  as  thoroughly  mundane  as  Chretien  or  Pseudo- 
Wauchier.  He  has  the  same  joie  de  vivre,  and  his  hero's  amours15 
and  the  occasional  ironical  comments  in  his  work  on  sexual  mat- 
ters16 are  even  more  licentious  in  tendency  than  anything  in 
Chretien.  Here,  as  in  Pseudo- Wauchier,  the  Grail  occupies  really 
a  very  small  part  in  the  narrative,  but,  after  a  fashion,  it  gives 
unity  to  the  whole,  for  at  the  conclusion  the  hero  has  at  last 
reached  the  Grail  castle.  Unfortunately,  Wauchier's  continuation 
breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  this  crowning  scene.  Unlike  modern 
scholars,  however,  our  poet  did  not  take  the  Grail  quest  very 
seriously,  for  he  makes  his  hero  turn  aside  from  it  on  any  provo- 
cation. Look,  for  instance,  at  the  absurd  complex  of  adventures, 
concerning  the  magic  chessboard,  the  stag-head  and  tomb-knight 
(11.  22393ff.).17     The  girl  who  owns  the  magic  chessboard  will 


15  Cp.  11.  25017ff.,  30449ff.,  etc. 

16  Cp.  11.  28763ff.,  34 01  Iff.,  etc. 


17  The  magic  chessboard  (self-playing  chessmen)  motif  hsid  a  great 
success  and  from  Wauchier  (apparently)  it  passed  into  the  Didot-Per- 
ceval  (J.  L.  Weston's  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  II,  31  ff.),  the  Welsh 
Peredur  (Loth's  Mabinogion*,  II,  114ff.),  the  prose  Lancelot  (Sommer's 
Vulgate  Version,  etc.,  V,  151  ff.),  the  Perlesvaus  (Potvin  ed.  p.  89)  and 
Dutch  Lancelot  (11.  1839ff.).  Cp.  J.  D.  Bruce,  Romanic  Review, 
IX,  375  f.  (1918),  where  the  earlier  literature  on  the  subject  of  the 
relations  of  the  different  versions  is  given. 

The  second  tomb-knight  episode  in  Wauchier  (11.  29  680ff.)  is 
probably  nearer  to  the  (as  yet,  unidentified)  folk-tale  of  which  both 
episodes  are  variants.  In  this  second  episode  Perceval  comes  upon  a 
marble  tomb  under  a  tree  and  a  knight  confined  in  it.  In  compliance 
with  the  knight's  petition,  Perceval  cuts  off  a  limb  of  the  tree  and 
prizes  open  the  tomb,  thereby  freeing  the  knight.  No  sooner  is  the 
imprisoned  man  out  than  he  knocks  his  liberator  over  into  the  tomb 
and  shuts  down  the  lid.  He  seizes  still  further  Perceval's  mule,  but 
the  animal,  being  enchanted,  will  not  move,  so  that  the  ungrateful 
knight  finally  has  to  return,  liberate  Perceval,  and  resume  his  old  place 
in  the  tomb,  the  lid  of  which  now  falls  with  such  force  that  it  shakes 
the  earth. 

In  her  Studies  in  the  Fairy  Mythology  of  Arthurian  Romance, 
p.  223,  note  5  (Boston,  1903)  Miss  Paton  includes  in  a  list  of  supposed 
parallels  to  this  story  an  episode  in  the  Welsh  tale,  Pwyll,  Prince 
of  Dyved  (Loth's  Mabinogion2,  I,  99 ff.),  where  PwyU,  following  the 


Continuations  of  Chretien  303 

not  grant  Perceval  her  love,  unless  he  will  bring  her  the  head 
of  the  white  stag  in  the  park  nearby.  He  takes  her  hound  along 
with  him,  kills  the  stag,  and  is  cutting  it  up,  when  the  ill-con- 
ditioned owner  of  the  stag,  a  girl,  seizes  the  hound  and  will  not 
give  it  up,  unless  Perceval  will  challenge  a  knight  who  lives  in 
a  tomb.  The  pursuit  of  the  hound  leads  thus  to  a  variety  of  ex- 
travagant adventures,  which  end  in  Perceval's  enjoying  the  promis- 
ed favors  of  its  mistress.  It  has  an  almost  comic  effect  that  the 
hero  should  be  deflected  from  the  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail  by 
such  a  series  of  achievements,  the  object  of  which,  after  all.,  is 
the  gratification  of  a  merely  sensual  passion.  This  hero,  in  fact, 
had  made  the  pursuit  of  the  hound  the  excuse  for  what  in  actual  life 
would  be  regarded  as  an  act  of  much  greater  moral  obliquity  — 
namely,  the  abandonment  of  Blanchefleur,  whom,  after  lying  with 
her,  he  had  promised  to  marry.  But  Wauchier  was  no  ascetic,  and 
he  was  exploiting  the  story  of  the  Grail  by  new  inventions  simply 
for  the  entertainment  of  his  high-born  patrons,  and,  except  in 
so  far  as  it  contributed  to  that  purpose,  it  had  no  more  interest 
for  him  than  the  materials  of  chivalrous  and  amorous  adventure 
which  make  up  the  greater  part  of  his  poem.  Although  inferior 
to  the  work  of  his  anonymous  predecessor,  Wauchier's  continuation 
contains  some  happily  told  episodes  —  for  instance,  the  story  of 
Perceval's  return  to  his  old  home  and  the  scene  of  recognition  there 
with  his  sister18  —  also,  his  subsequent  visit  to  his  hermit  uncle. 


advice  of  the  fay,  Rhiannon,  manages  to  entrap  Gwawl  in  a  sack.  The 
differences,  however,  are  too  great,  and  I  agree  with  Josef  Baudis, 
Folk-Lore,  XXVII,  44  f.  (1916),  that  there  is  no  connection  between 
the  two  stories.  He  compares  with  the  Wauchier  episode  a  trick  in 
the  Irish  Naked  Hangman  (Eriu,  VII,  201)  and  the  tale  of  The 
Three  Gifts,  in  which  the  hero,  imprisoned  in  the  magical  bag,  is  a 
devil  or  Death.  "He  gets  a  sound  hammering"  in  the  bag.  It  seems 
to  me,  however,  that  the  true  original  of  Wauchier's  tomb-knight  in- 
cidents must  be  some  ghost  story  concerning  a  haunted  tomb,  such 
as  abound  in  all  parts  of  the  world. 

18  This  character,  who  figures  also  in  the  Queste  del  Saint  Graal, 
is,  no  doubt,  the  invention  of  Wauchier.  Cp.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spi.  u.  Litt.}  XXXIs,  126. 


304  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Coming  next  to  Manessier,  we  have  here  an  even  more  ram- 
bling romance  of  adventure  than  in  the  case  of  Wauchier's  con- 
tinuation, and  in  a  much  duller  style.  Episodes  concerning  Gawain 
and  Sagremor,  for  example,  that  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  main 
action  are  introduced.  Manessier's  work  is  mainly  a  compilation 
of  the  mustiest  commonplaces  of  Arthurian  romance  —  knights 
vanquishing  their  adversaries  and  sending  them  to  Arthur's  court, 
etc.  The  only  episodes  of  any  interest  are  the  variant  of  the  Black 
Hand  episode  (11.  39790ff.)  and  Perceval's  visits  to  the  Grail 
castle  (11.  44591  ff.),  the  first  really  invented  by  Pseudo-Wauchier, 
as  we  have  seen  above,  the  latter  modelled  on  Wauchier  and  Chre- 
tien. Besides  Chretien,  Wauchier  and  Pseudo-Wauchier,  Manes- 
sier makes  use  of  the  prose  romances  of  the  so-called  Walter  Map 
cycle.19 

Let  us  look,  however,  more  closely  at  the  Grail  incidents  in 
Manessier. 

In  Manessier  we  have  two  visits  to  the  Grail  castle.  The  first 
is  merely  a  completion  of  the  visit  which  Wauchier  had  begun  to 
describe.  Manessier  here  simply  takes  up  the  narrative  where  Wau- 
chier left  off.  On  this  visit  Perceval  asks  all  the  questions  which 
he  had  failed  to  ask  on  his  original  visit  —  with  such  disastrous 
consequences  to  the  land.  The  Fisher  King  gives  him  the  most 
ample  information  on  each  of  the  points  concerned,  so  that  the 
real  Grail  problem  would  seem  to  be  solved.  But  it  turns  out  now 
that,  according  to  a  conception  which  the  writer  borrowed  from 
the  prose  Grail  romances,  the  Fisher  King  had  received  his  wound 
from  the  fragments  of  a  sword  with  which  his  brother,  Goon 
Desert,  had  been  slain,  and  it  will  never  heal  until  an  unknown 
knight  has  slain  the  murderer  (Partinal).  So  this  gives  the  author 
the  excuse  for  several  thousand  lines  of  disconnected  adventures, 
with  the  usual  complement  of  damsels,  hermits,  etc.  At  last,  Per- 
ceval kills  Partinal  and  returns  to  the  Grail  castle  with  the  head 
hanging  at  his  saddle-bow.  As  soon  as  the  king  learns  of  this, 
he  leaps  to  his  feet  and  is  straightway  made  whole.  There  is 
a  repetition  that  night  of  the  Grail  procession  at  supper,  and  af  ter- 


10 


Cp.  Heinzel,  p.  73. 


Continuations  of  Chretien  305 

wards,  on  Perceval's  disclosing  his  name  to  the  king,  it  is  dis- 
covered that  the  young  knight  is  his  own  sister's  son.  The  king 
wishes  to  hand  over  his  crown  at  once  to  his  nephew,  but  the  latter 
refuses  to  take  it,  so  long  as  his  uncle  is  living.  Perceval  returns 
now  to  Arthur's  court  —  has,  of  course,  new  adventures  on  the 
way  —  and  when  he  arrives  there,  Arthur  has  a  record  of  his 
achievements  written  down  and  kept  in  a  box  at  Salisbury.  We 
have  here  an  imitation  of  the  conclusion  of  the  prose  Queste  del 
Saint  Graal,  where  the  story  of  the  deeds  of  the  Quest-knights 
is  said  to  have  been  preserved  in  the  same  manner.  The  Grail 
damsel  now  appears  and  tells  Perceval  that  his  uncle  is  dead.  Perce- 
val goes  to  the  Grail  castle,  accompanied  by  all  the  court,  who 
assist  at  his  crowning  and  remain  with  him  a  month,  during 
which  time  the  Grail  feeds  all  with  the  costliest  foods.  He  marries 
his  cousins,  the  two  Grail-bearers,  to  two  valiant  kings  and  reigns 
in  peace  for  seven  years,  after  which  time  he  follows  a  hermit 
into  the  wilderness,  accompanied  by  Grail,  lance,  and  holy  dish. 
He  serves  the  Lord  for  ten  years,  and,  when  he  dies,  Grail,  lance 
and  dish  were,  doubtless,  carried  up  to  heaven,  for  since  that  day 
no  man  has  seen  them. 

There  is  no  need  of  pointing  out  the  numerous  differences  of 
conception  in  matters  of  detail  which  Manessier  exhibits  as  com- 
pared with  his  predecessors;20  for  these  differences  simply  mean 
that  he  has  chosen  to  modify  or  add  to  the  narrative  according 
to  his  own  pleasure.  There  is  no  ground  for  assuming  that  he 
had  access  to  any  sources  for  the  legend  of  the  Grail  other  than  the 
romances  in  verse  and  prose  on  this  theme  that  we  still  possess.21 

The  same  thing  (pace  Brugger  and  Miss  Weston)  applies  to 
the  last  writer  of  the  series,  viz.  Gerbert.22  He  is  acquainted  with 

20  Heinzel,  pp.  59  ff.,  has  done  this  for  Manessier  and,  74 ff.,  for 
Gerbert. 

21  Nutt,  p.  182,  is  so  possessed  with  the  prejudices  of  a  folk- 
lorist  that  he  not  only  believes  that  Manessier  drew  from  oral  Grail 
traditions,  but  thinks  that  he  represents  them  more  closely  than  Chretien. 

"  Miss  Weston  in  her  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  140ff.  takes 
Gerbert's  account  of  Perceval's  experience  with  the  sword  which  he 
received  at  the  Grail  castle,  as  evidence  that  he  was  using  not  merely 


306  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

all   the  writers  who  have  thus  far  been  discussed  and  with  the 
Grail  prose-romances  as  well.23 


Chretien,  but  ''the  source  of  Chretien's  sword  story,  and  that  source 
was  an  elaborate  and  well-thought-on  poem"  (p.  145).  But  she,  herself, 
says  (p.  144)  that  this  account  is  "thoroughly  consistent  with  the 
indications  given  by  Chretien",  and  her  only  reason  for  refusing  to 
accept  it  as  Gerbert's  own  invention  is  that  he  does  not  develop  the 
episode  of  Perceval's  marriage  with  the  same  consistency.  I  need  not 
point  out  how  purely  subjective  this  reasoning  is.  Besides,  I  may 
remark  that  the  defects  of  the  marriage  episode  are  due  to  Gerbert's 
introduction  of  a  didactic,  moral,  aim  into  the  narrative.  That  has 
often  brought  better  poets  than  Gerbert  to  grief.  The  conception  of 
the  sword,  which  we  have  already  in  Chretien,  may  be  ultimately 
derived  from  the  Wieland  saga,  as  Miss  Weston,  pp.  149  ff.,  contends, 
but  that  circumstance  would  have  no  bearing  on  the  present  question. 
Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXI2,  130  (1907),  says: 
"Ich  bin  auch  der  Meinung,  dass  Gerbert  ausser  Chretien's  Perceval 
mit  Fortsetzung  noch  einen  Perceval-Roman  gekannt  hat.  Die  Con- 
nection Percevals  mit  dem  Schwanritter  bei  Gerbert  und  Wolfram  be- 
weist,  dass  jener  Roman  entweder  Kiot's  Perceval  oder  die  gemeinsame 
Quelle  von  Chretien  und  Kiot  (das  Buch  des  Graf  en  Philipp?)  war." 
Later  (p.  131)  he  thinks  this  romance,  used  by  Gerbert,  was  probably 
Kiot's  (Guiot's).  Somewhat  similarly  before  him,  E.  Martin  in  his 
edition  of  Wolfram,  Strassburg,  1900—1903,  II,  Einleitung,  p.  XLII, 
says  that  Wolfram  and  Gerbert,  who,  independently  of  each  other, 
show  the  combination  of  the  Swan-knight  and  Grail  stories,  may  have 
both  drawn  on  "altere  franzosische  Uberlieferung".  This  hypothesis, 
however,  is  not  necessary.  At  the  time  that  Wolfram  and  Gerbert 
wrote,  both  stories  were,  so  to  speak,  household  words  in  Western 
Europe,  and  in  Gerbert's  case,  especially,  the  suggestion  to  combine 
the  two  lay  very  near,  for  Pseudo-Wauchier,  whose  work  he  had  be- 
fore him,  had  already  exploited  the  Swan-knight  story  in  the  incident 
of  the  swan-drawn  boat,  11.  20857ff.  It  is  indifferent  for  the  present 
inquiry  whether  we  believe  that  the  Swan-knight  legend  had  a  separate 
existence,  before  it  became  attached  to  the  house  of  Bouillon  or  not. 
W.  Golther,  Eomanische  Forschungen,  II,  103ff.  (1889),  and  G.  Paris, 
Romania,  XXVI,  580ff.  (1897),  for  example,  affirm  that  it  had,  but 
J.  F.  D.  Blote  Zs.  f.  roman.  Ph.,  XXI,  176ff.  (1897),  XXV,  Iff. 
(1901),  XXVI,  Iff.  (1903),  denies  this.  The  former  are,  doubtless,  right. 
Cp,  Heinzel,  75  f.  He  shares  with  Chretien's  other  continuators, 
as  distinguished  from  Chretien,  himself,  the  revenge  motive,  and,  like 
them,    he  discards   the  father   of   the  Fisher  King.     His  knowledge  of 


Continuations  of  ChrStien  307 

He  connects  his  continuation24  with  Perceval's  visit  to  the  Grail 
castle  at  the  end  of  Wauchier's  division  of  the  Conte  del  Graal 
(1.  34934).  Wauchier,  doubtless,  intended  that  Perceval  should 
finally  achieve  the  Grail  adventure  at  this  point,  and  that  would 
have  ended  the  story;  but  Gerbert,  who  wished  to  make  his  own 
contribution  to  the  Grail  theme,  does  not  complete  in  that  sense 
the  episode  which  Wauchier  left  unfinished.  In  the  new  poet's 
conception  Perceval  is  still  unable  to  join  together  the  pieces  of 
the  broken  sword,  owing  to  his  sin,  in  being  indirectly  the  cause 
of  his  mother's  death  (VI,  163),  when  he  insisted  on  leaving  home 
against  her  will.  Having  thus  made  his  own  work  possible,  Ger- 
bert launches  out  into  a  narrative  of  fantastic  and  chivalrous  ad- 
ventures of  the  ordinary  kind,  the  best  of  which,  perhaps,  relate 
to  the  mysterious  sword  of  the  Grail  castle.  His  hero  has  to 
expiate  still  further,  however,  his  sin  in  respect  to  Blanchefleur> 
whom  he  had  promised  to  marry.  In  this  connection  we  have  a 
precious  bit  of  mediaevalism  in  the  description  (VI,  199ff.)  of 
how  the  lovers  pass  the  night  before  their  wedding  in  bed  together, 
yet  abstain  from  carnal  intercourse  and  mutually  laud  the  virtues 
of  chastity.  Indeed,  they  practise  this  doctrine  of  continence  until 
Perceval  has  achieved  the  Grail  adventure,  and  would  have  done 
so  to  the  end,  had  not  a  celestial  voice  on  their  wedding  night 


Pseudo- Wauchier  is  plain  from  his  adoption  (Potvin,  IV,  166ff.)  of  the 
motif  that,  immediately  after  Perceval  asks  about  the  Grail,  the  blight 
which  rested  on  the  land  was  lifted,  and  of  the  further  motif  VI, 
249,  of  the  swan-drawn  boat.  From  Wauchier,  too,  he  borrows,  among 
other  things,  the  character  of  Perceval's  sister,  invented  by  that  writer, 
and  he  follows  both  Wauchier  and  Pseudo-Wauchier  in  conceiving  of 
the  Grail  King  as  not  disabled. 

Potvin,  VI,  259,  speaks  of  Gerbert's  portion  of  the  Conte  del 
Graal,  as  an  interpolation,  but,  as  I  have  stated  above,  there  is  no 
convincing  evidence  that  he  knew  Manessier's  continuation,  so  that  it 
is  better  to  regard  it  with  Nutt,  p.  22,  note,  as  an  "independent  finish" 
to  the  poem. 

R.  H.  Griffith,  "The  Magic  Balm  of  Gerbert  and  Fierabras  and 
a  Query",  MLN,  XXV,  102  f.  (1910),  suggests  that  in  the  passage 
concerning  the  magic  balm.  Potvin,  VI,  183  ff.,  Gerbert  is  imitating 
Fierabras.     The  resemblance,  however,  may  be  accidental. 


308  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

(VI,  209),  instructed  Perceval  that  the  "delit  camel"  was  per- 
missible in  marriage,  for  the  begetting  of  issue  and  avoidance 
of  sin,  and  predicted  that  among  his  posterity  would  be  the  Swan- 
Knight  and  the  three  conquerors  of  Jerusalem.  This  allusion  to 
Godefroi  de  Bouillon,  the  hero  of  the  first  Crusade,  and  his 
brothers,  Eustace  and  Baldwin,  as  connected  with  the  Swan-Knight, 
is  imitated  from  the  metrical  romance,  Le  Chevalier  au  Cygne, 
which  derives  the  house  of  Bouillon  from  that  character.  In  the 
end  (VI,  256ff.)  Perceval  again  reaches  the  Grail  castle,  is  wel- 
comed by  the  Fisher  King,  witnesses  the  Grail  procession,  unites 
the  broken  sword  —  in  short,  brings  to  a  conclusion  the  adventures 
of  the  Holy  Grail. 

None  of  these  continuators  of  Chretien,  however,  except 
Pseudo-Wauchier,  rose  above  mediocrity,  and,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  entirely  secondary,  being,  in  the  present  writer's  opinion,  with- 
out access  to  any  independent  sources  for  the  conception  of  the 
Grail,   it  is  needless  to  dwell  longer  upon  their  additions.25 


25  The  Berne  MS.  of  Wauchier,  which  is  summarized  by  A.  Rochat, 
tjber  einen  bisher  uribekannten  Percheval  li  Galois  (Zurich,  1855), 
adds  (pp.  90 ff.)  a  brief  conclusion  of  56  lines  to  Wauchier's  unfinished 
work.  Perceval  here  ends  the  Grail  quest  by  asking  the  necessary 
question.  He  is  said  to  be  the  son  of  Alains  li  Gros  and  Enigeus. 
As  Nutt  remarks,  p.  19,  this  shows  use  of  Robert's  Joseph.  Heinzel, 
p.  59,  objects  that  in  Robert's  poem  Alain  is  not  called  "li  Gros". 
See,  however,  the  prose  version,  p.  127. 


Chapter  V. 
Sir  Perceval  of  Galles. 

Besides  the  great  Conte  del  Graal  of  Chretien  and  his  suc- 
cessors, there  are  three  other  important  works  that  deal  with  the 
story  of  Perceval  or  the  Grail,  viz.  the  Middle  English  metrical 
romance,  Sir  Perceval  of  Galles  (composed  about  1370),  the  Par- 
zival  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  composed  early  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  and  the  Welsh  tale,  Peredur,  which  was  probably  written 
somewhere  about  the  year  1300.  The  fiercest  controversies  have 
raged  in  regard  to  these  works,  but,  in  the  present  writer's  opinion, 
this  is  due  to  the  baleful  assumption  that  has  come  down  from 
the  Romantic  Era  to  the  effect  that  mediaeval  poets  were  in- 
capable of  inventing  anything  themselves  —  they  were  always 
merely  transcribing  hypothetical  sources.  But  nobody  has  ever  ex- 
plained why,  if  the  authors  of  hypothetical  sources  were  so  gifted 
with  invention,  the  authors  of  the  works  actually  preserved  should 
be  so  destitute  of  this  faculty. 

Let  us  take  first  the  Sir  Perceval  of  Galles.  The  peculiarity 
of  this  romance  is  that  it  contains  nothing  about  the  Grail,  though 
it  strongly  resembles  Chretien's  Perceval  in  other  respects.  The 
authority  of  Gaston  Paris1  gave  currency  to  the  view  that  this 
poem  stood  closest  of  all  extant  works  to  the  primitive  form  of 
the  story  of  Perceval,  which,  he  supposed,  belonged  to  Welsh  oral 

1  Histoire  latter  aire  de  la  France,  XXX,  259  ff.  G.  Paris  here 
expresses  strong  approval  of  W.  Hertz's  discussion  of  the  subject,  which 
antedated  his  own.  The  essay  on  the  Grail  by  the  latter  is  now 
easily  accessible  in  his  Parzival  von  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  neu 
bearbeitet,  pp.  413  ff.     For  the  English  poem,  see  pp.  435  ff. 


310  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tradition,  so  that  it  represents  best  the  versions  of  that  story 
which  was  used  both  by  Chretien  and  by  the  author  of  the  Welsh 
Peredur.  Miss  Weston2  and  others  have  laid  stress  on  some  points 
of  supposed  agreement  even  between  the  English  poem  and 
Wolfram's  Parzival,  which,  they  argue,  go  back  to  a  common 
source.  The  whole  subject  has  been  most  fully  discussed  by  R.  H. 
Griffith  in  his  treatise,  Sir  Perceval  of  Galles  (Chicago,  1919),3 
and  by  A.  C.  L.  Brown  in  his  study,  "The  Grail  and  the  English 
Sir  Perceval."  *  Griff  ith  endeavors  to  adduce  parallels  to  the  Middle 
English  romance  from  various  Celtic  folk-tales,  and  his  conclusion 
is  that  the  English  poem  is  not  only  wholly  independent  of  Chre- 
tien, but  is  merely  "an  English  singer's  versification  of  a  folk- 
tale that  was  known  in  his  district  of  Northwest  England."5  His 
parallels,  however,  are  forced,  in  the  extreme,  and,  in  most  cases, 
bear  no  essential  resemblance  to  the  Middle  English  poem.    This 


*  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  319,  Cp.  too,  A.  C.  L.  Brown, 
"The  Grail  and  the  English  Sir  Perceval"  MPh.,  XVI,  553h\  (1919). 

3  Cp.  end  of  next  chapter  (note). 

4  MPh.  XVI,  553ff.  (1919),  XVII,  361ff.  (1919),  XVIH,  661ff. 
(1921).  For  comment  on  Brown's  attempt  in  the  first  two  sections 
of  his  study  to  connect  the  English  poem  with  Wolfram  aud  the  Lan- 
zelet  cp.  note  just  cited.  The  third  section  consists  of  a  collection  of  sup- 
posed Irish  parallels  —  to  me,  unconvincing  —  to  incidents  in  Sir  Per- 
ceval,  cited  to  prove  that  the  English  romance  has  an  Irish  source. 
As  I  have  stated  in  the  text  above,  however,  I  see  no  necessity  of 
looking  further  than  Chretien  for  a  source. 

6  This  conclusion  is  manifestly  untenable.  Cp.  my  review  of 
Griffith's  book  in  RR.,  IV,  125ff.  (1913).  So,  too,  Brugger,  Zs.  /. 
frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  XLIV2,  170ff.  (1917);  in  other  respects,  he  finds 
much  to  commend  in  Griffith's  book.  The  complete  agreement  in  the 
order  of  incidents  between  Chretien  and  the  English  romance  and  the 
French  nomenclature  of  the  latter  prove  conclusively  that  Sir  Per- 
ceval of  Galles  is  based  on  a  French  original.  Acheflour,  the  name 
of  the  heroine  in  Sir  Perceval,  is,  I  may  remark,  in  passing,  merely 
a  MS  corruption  of  Blancheflor  (Blanchefleur),  the  name  of  Chretien's 
heroine.  Nothing  is  commoner  in  mediaeval  MSS.  than  the  dropping 
of  initial  letters  in  proper  names  and  the  loss  of  n  in  the  same.  The 
latter  error  is,  of  course,  due  to  neglect  of  the  stroke  (over  the  pre- 
ceding vowel),   which  is  so  often  used  in  these  MSS.  to  denote  w. 


Sir  Perceval  of  Galles  311 

poem,  however,  seems  to  me  plainly  a  mere  adaptation  of  Chre- 
tien's Perceval  with  the  Grail  left  out.  Moreover,  the  author  had 
before  him  not  only  Chretien's  genuine  work,  but  a  spurious  pro- 
logue, known  as  the  Bliocadrans-prologue,  which  is  found  in  two 
MSS.  This  spurious  composition  contains  an  account  of  the  manner 
in  which  Perceval's  father  died  and  also  of  his  youth.  Accor- 
dingly, we  have  in  the  English  Sir  Perceval  the  story  of  Perceval's 
childhood  given  as  well  as  the  incidents  of  his  career  after  he  sets 
out  for  Arthur's  court.6  There  is  in  the  English  poem  an  episode, 
not  represented  in  Chretien,  in  which  the  hero  rescues  a  besieged 
lady  and  marries  her.  There  are  somewhat  similar  stories  in  the 
Latin  prose  romance  of  the  thirteenth  century,  De  Ortu  Waluuanii 
and  in  Yder,  a  French  romance  in  verse  of  the  same  century  — 
and,  no  doubt,  the  English  poet  drew  on  some  source  of  this  kind  for 
the  particular  episode.7  As  he  approaches  the  episode  of  the  Grail 
castle  in  Chretien,  he  abandons  his  source,  describes  how,  on  hear- 
ing news  of  his  mother,  the  hero  sought  her,  found  her  demented, 
and  going  with  her  to  the  dwelling  of  a  giant  whom  he  had  slain, 
cured  her  of  insanity  by  a  magic  drink.  With  his  mother  he 
returns  to  his  queen  and  his  realm.  Afterward  he  went  to  the  Holy 
Land  and  there  he  was  killed. 

The  motive  that  actuated  the  English  poet  in  omitting  the 
Grail  incidents  from  his  poem  is  probably  the  fact  that  they 
differed  altogether  from  the  usual  material  of  the  romances.  The 
mystery  of  it  all  may  well  have  puzzled  him.    The  writer  is  by 


6  Hertz,  Parzival,  p.  438,  cites  as  evidence  that  the  English 
Sir  Perceval  drew  from  a  more  primitive  source  than  Chretien's  poem, 
an  approximate  agreement  between  the  former  and  the  Italian  poem 
Carduino  (second  half  of  the  fourteenth  century)  a  romance  of  the 
Bel  Inconnu  type,  in  a  certain  detail:  In  both  the  hero  is  a  rustic 
simpleton,  brought  up  in  the  forest,  and  in  both  lie  begins  his  martial 
experience  with  javelins  (in  Carduino  he  has  two,  in  Sir  Perceval 
one).  The  last  detail  is  not  very  important,  but,  most  likely,  Carduino 
derived  it  from  a  version  of  the  Perceval  tale.  This  is,  probably, 
true,  likewise,  of  the  simpleton  motif. 

7  Cp.  my  Historia  Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii,  p.  LIX, 
Baltimore,   1913. 


312  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

no  means  devoid  of  constructive  skill,  but  there  is  no  ground  for 
believing  that  he,  any  more  than  the  authors  of  the  other  Middle 
English  romances,  was  very  highly  educated  or  that  he  had  a 
brain  for  subtleties.  These  works  deal,  as  a  rule,  with  stock  themes 
—  fighting,  especially  with  pagans  and  giants,  witches,  etc.  — 
and  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  author  of  the  present  poem  balked 
at  so  unfamiliar  a  theme  as  the  Grail.  This  would  be  particularly 
true,  if  he  merely  had  before  him  Chretien's  poem  with  the  spuri- 
ous Bliocadrans-prologue,  but  none  of  the  continuations.  In  view 
of  the  length  of  Chretien's  Perceval  plus  these  continuations,  and 
the  consequent  paucity  of  copies  in  circulation,  all  the  probabili- 
ties are  that  such  was  the  case.  But  Chretien's  work,  being  un- 
finished, leaves  the  Grail  unexplained,  and  one  can  easily  com- 
prehend, then,  why  the  English  author  should  have  shirked  so 
difficult  a.  subject.  Moreover,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the 
English  romance  was  already  fairly  long  (according  to  English 
standards),  before  it  reached  the  Grail  episode  in  Chretien,  and 
the  writer  may  have  concluded,  very  naturally,  that  his  work  was 
long  enough.  Surely,  in  view  of  all  these  reasonable  considerations 
we  have  no  cause  to  be  surprised,  if  we  find  the  Grail  theme 
omitted  in  this  poem  alone  of  all  the  romances  of  which  Perceval 
is  the  hero.8 


8  Cp.  my  review  of  Griffith's  book  in  RR.,  IV,  125  ff.  (Jan.- 
March,  1913). 

It  is  worth  noting  that  in  a  romance  which  was,  in  reality,  a 
sort  of  continuation  of  Chretien's  Perceval  and  in  which  the  hero  was 
a  son  of  Perceval,  the  Grail  was  omitted.  I  refer  to  the  Morien, 
which  only  survives  in  the  Dutch  version,  Moriaen.  Cp.  p.  331,  note  33, 
below.  G.  Paris,  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  XXX,  252 1,  observed 
these  peculiarities  of  the  Morien. 


Chapter  VI. 
Wolfram's  Parzival, 

No  problem  of  the  Grail  literature  has  excited  more  active  dis- 
cussion than  that  of  the  sources  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach's 
Parzival.1  Chretien's  poem  is  represented  in  its  entirety  in  Wolf- 
ram, but  the  German  poet  has  prefixed  to  the  main  narrative  an 


1  As  is  customary,  my  Parzival  references  will  be  to  Lach- 
mann's  divisions  of  the  text,  each  containing  30  lines.  These  divisions 
are  indicated  in  all  editions  of  the  poem. 

Wolfram  was  a  Bavarian  knight  (cp.  the  Parzival,  115,  11  and 
121,  7)  and  the  Parzival  was  composed  in  the  first  decade  of 
the  thirteenth  century.  At  379,19  there  is  a  reference  to  an  event 
that  took  place  in  1203 — 1204,  viz.  the  siege  of  Erfurt  by  Wolfram's 
patron,  the  Landgrave,  Hermann  von  Thiiringen.  From  the  nature 
of  the  allusion  it  appears  that  that  event  was  comparatively  recent. 
On  the  other  hand,  Hermann  von  Thiiringen,  who  died  April  25,  1217, 
was  still  alive  when  Wolfram,  at  297,  16ff.,  addressed  him,  personally. 
So  this  part  of  the  Parzival  was  certainly  composed  before  the  date 
just  given.  For  other  indications  respecting  the  date  of  the  Parzival, 
cp.  R.  Luck,   Uber  die  Abfassungszeit  des  Parzival  (Halle  diss.  1878). 

It  is  nowadays  generally  agreed  that  Wolfram's  Titurel,  which 
deals  with  an  episode  of  Chretien's  Perceval,  11,  3390 ff.  —  namely 
the  one  in  which  Perceval,  after  leaving  the  Grail  castle,  comes  upon 
his  cousin  (called  Sigune  by  the  German  poet),  supporting  the  dead 
body  of  her  slain  lover  in  her  lap  —  was  written  after  the  Parzival 
not  improbably,  even  after  the  Willehalm.  Cp.,  especially,  A.  Leitz- 
mann,  "Untersuchungen  uber  Wolfram's  Titurel,"  PBB,  XXVI,  93  ff. 
(1901)  —  particularly,  pp.  145  ff.  The  poem  was  left  a  fragment  — 
doubtless,  on  account  of  the  author's  death. 

As  regards  the  Willehalm  (also  incomplete),  which  is  based  on 
Aliscans,  an  Old  French  chanson  de  geste  of  the  Guillaume  d' Orange 
cycle,  Book  IX,  at  least,  must  have  been  composed  after  April  25, 
1217,  the  date  of  the  death  of  Hermann  von  Thiiringen,  as  stated 
above,  for  in  that  book  (417,12)  Wolfram  alludes  to  Hermann  as  dead. 


314  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

account  (Books  I — II)  of  the  life  of  Perceval's  father  and  he  has 
completed  (Books  XIV — XVI)  the  account  of  the  quest  of  the 
Grail  which  Chretien  left  unfinished.  Moreover,  in  these  ad- 
ditions, both  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end,  we  are  made  ac- 
quainted with  an  elder  half-brother  of  Percival's,  named  Feirefiz,2 
who  does  not  appear  in  Chretien.  There  would  be  nothing  strange 
in  it,  if  Wolfram  had  supplied  these  additions  from  his  own  ima- 
gination. His  continuation  of  Chretien's  poem  is  wholly  indepen- 
dent of  the  continuation  by  the  French  poets  discussed  above,  but 
the  tantalizing  condition  in  which  Chretien  left  the  Grail-quest, 
even  the  nature  of  the  sacred  vessel  being  unexplained,  would 
naturally  stimulate  him,  as  it  did  the  first  (anonymous)  continuator 
of  his  Perceval,  Wauchier,  and  the  rest,  to  develop  the  story  to  a 


*  I.  e.  Old  French  "vairs  fiz"  =  "party-colored  son",  his  father 
being  white  and  his  mother  black.  With  respect  to  the  variegated 
coloring  of  his  skin  and  hair,  Wolfram  (57,  27)  compares  him  to  a 
magpie.  Cp.,  too,  753,  17ff.  The  poet,  doubtless,  hit  upon  this  bizarre 
name,  vairs  fiz,  because  in  Chretien's  Perceval  (11.  336,  537,  et 
passim)  Perceval,  the  character's  half-brother,  is  often  addressed  as 
"biax  fi(l)z"  =  "beautiful  son."  Surely,  no  French-speaking  person 
would  have  invented  such  a  name  as  "vairs  fiz."  In  Wolfram  the. 
father  of  ParziVal  and  Feirefiz  is  named  Gahmuret.  Rochat,  Ger- 
mania,  III,  114  (1858),  identified  this  name  rightly  with  Gomeret, 
name  of  a  kingdom  in  Chretien's  Erec,  1.  1775,  and  in  other  romances, 
which  is,  also,  occasionally  a  personal  name  in  these  romances.  Cp. 
W.  Hertz,  Parzival,  p.  469,  (Stuttgart,  1898).  Brugger's  identification, 
however,  of  Gomeret  with  Sagremor,  M.ori-Festschrift,  pp.  55  ff.,  is 
forced,  in  the  extreme.  On  his  attempt  to  connect  the  story  of  Gahmuret 
with  a  passage  in  the  Livre  d'Artus  of  MS.  337  cp.  p.  331,  note  33, 
below.  Perceval's  mother  is  named  Herzeloyde  in  Wolfram,  i.  e.  Old 
French,  Herselot. 

In  his  important  study,  Wolfram's  Stil  und  der  Stojf  des  Parzival, 
pp.  63  f.  (Wien,  1918,  in  the  Sitzungsberichte  of  the  Vienna  Academy 
of  Sciences,  Band  180,  Abhandlung  4)  —  which,  in  the  rest  of  this 
chapter,  I  shall  refer  to  merely  as  "Singer"  —  S.  Singer  denies  the 
identity  of  Gahmuret  (Gamuret)  and  the  Gomeret  of  the  romances. 
But  the  names  in  the  Parzival  —  as  far  as  they  are  comprehensible 
—  are  all  either  drawn  from  the  romances  or  fabricated  on  the  model 
of  the  names  in  these  works,  so  that  there  is  no  good  reason  for 
questioning  the  identity. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  315 

conclusion.  Similarly,  the  addition  of  the  preliminary  narrative, 
which  tells  of  the  hero's  parentage,  the  adventures  and  marriages 
of  his  father,  was  quite  natural,  in  view  of  the  models  with  which 
Thomas's  Tristan  and  Chretien's  Cliges  supplied  him.3  We  have 
seen  that  a  French  poet  was  also  inspired  —  no  doubt,  by  these 
same  models  (especially,  Thomas's  Tristan)  —  to  prefix  an  early 
history  of  the  hero's  parents  to  the  Perceval.  But  a  difficulty 
is  created  by  Wolfram's  appeal  to  an  unknown  Kyot  (Kiot)  as  the 
source  of  his  poem.  This  Kyot  is  first  mentioned,  1.  12469  (416, 
20,  of  Lachmann's  text),  that  is  to  say,  near  the  middle  of  the 
Parzival,  and  in  a  quite  informal  fashion.  Contrary  to  the  custom 
of  the  romance-writers,  the  German  poet  cites  no  authority  here 
at  the  beginning  of  his  poem,  where  the  citation  of  a  genuine 
authority  would  naturally  belong,  but  at  the  point  just  noted 
he  observes  off-hand,  at  the  end  of  a  speech  (416,  17),  that  a  king's 
follower,  named  Liddamus,  came  forward.  Kyot,  he  says,  calls 
him  thus.  He  also  says  here  that  Kyot  is  a  Provencal,  but  curi- 
ously adds  that,  using  a  source  in  a  heathen  language,4  he  (Kyot) 
wrote  his  work  in  French.  He  refers  to  this  same  Kyot  in  other 
places,5  only  two  of  which,  however,  possess  any  importance.    In 

3  Cp.  the  story  of  Tristan's  parents  in  Thomas's  Tristan,  of 
Cliges's  parents  in  Chretien's  Cliges,  To  be  sure,  there  is  no  evidence 
that  Wolfram  knew  Thomas's  poem.  In  Eilhart's  Tristan,  which  he 
knew  well  (cp.  Lichtenstein's  edition  of  Eilhart,  pp.  CXCIHff.),  the 
love-affairs  of  Tristan's  parents  are  treated  very  succinctly.  But  he 
was  certainly  familiar  with  the  Cliges.  See  his  references  thereto, 
334,  11,  586, 27,  712, 8.  The  last  two  are  to  the  love-story  of 
Cliges'  parents. 

4  The  lines  (416,  25ff.)  run: 

Kiot  ist  ein  Provenzal, 

der  dise  aventiur  von  Parzival 

heidensch  geschriben  sach. 

Swaz  er  en  franzoys  da  von  gesprach, 

bin  ich  niht  der  witze  laz, 

das  sage  ich  tiuschen  fiirbaz. 
So  the  story   of  Perceval   was  originally   a  heathen   tale!     The  same 
statement  is  made,  with  different  wording,  453,  llff. 

8  The  passages  are:  431,  2  (ich  sage  iu  als  Kiot  las),  453,  5ff. 
—   455,  22,   776,  10   (ob  Kyot   die  warheit  sprach),    805,  10   (op  der 


316  Evolution  of  Arthurian  'Romance 

one  of  these  (453,  llff.)  the  poet  is  describing  what  purports 
to  be  Kyot's  source,  —  namely,  the  pretended  work  of  a  half-Jew, 
Flegetanis,  on  the  history  of  the  Grail,  which  Kyot  found,  cast 
aside  in  the  city  of  Toledo  (in  Spain).  This  Flegetanis,  whose 
father  was  a  pagan  and  who  must,  therefore,  have  owed  his  de- 
scent from  Solomon  to  his  mother,  is  here  said  to  have  been  a 
great  astronomer  and  he  had  read  the  name  of  the  Grail  in  the 
stars  and  had  declared  that  a  host  of  angels  had  brought  the 
sacred  object  down  to  earth,  where  only  the  chaste  and  the  good 
of  the  Christian  faith  might  guard  it.  Through  application,  com- 
bined with  knowledge  of  necromancy,  Kyot  was  able  to  decipher 
the  strange  characters  in  which  this  heathen  (Arabic)  book  was 
written  and  the  virtues  of  Christian  baptism  enabled  him,  still 
further,  to  understand  its  contents,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  Flegetanis,  who  penned  it,  seems  to  have  understood  very 
well.  He  (Kyot)  now  began  to  seek  the  story  of  the  Grail  in  Latin 
books,  in  order  to  discover  where  there  was  a  people  suitable  to 
cherish  the  Grail.  He  read  chronicles  of  the  various  countries, 
Britain,  France,  Ireland,  and  elsewhere,  and  he  found  at  last  (455, 
12)  in  a  chronicle  of  "Anschow"6  — ■  doubtless,  Anjou  (in  France) 
—  the  story  which  he  sought.  In  this  story  he  read  concerning 
Mazadan7  and  how  the  Grail  descended  in  succession  to  Titurel,8 


Provenzal  die  warheit  las),  827,  Iff.  (at  the  end  of  the  poem).  It 
will  be  observed  that  the  first,  third  and  fourth  passages  have  no 
value  —  are,  indeed,  merely  phrases  to  make  out  the  rhyme. 

There  is  another  Kyot  in  Wolfram's  poem  —  viz.  Sigune's  father. 
He  is  a  minor  character  in  the  narrative,  and,  of  course,  is  not  to 
he  confounded  with  the  Kyot  (Kiot)  to  whom  Wolfram  appeals  as  his 
source.  For  this  other  Kyot,  who  is  a  duke  and  the  paternal  uncle 
of  Condwiramurs  (Parzival's  wife),  cp.  190,  6,  477,  4,  797,  4  etc. 

8  The  coupling  of  Anschowe  in  the  poem  with  Wales  (103,  7) 
and  with  Great  Britain,  Ireland  and  France,  (455,  lOff.)  leaves  no 
room  for  doubt  that  Wolfram's  Anschowe  is  primarily  Anjou.  On  the 
Austrian  Ansowe  (Antschau)  see  p.  321,  note  16,  below. 

7  The  interpretation  of  Mazadan  as  derived  from  an  Irish  Mac 
Adam  —  "sons  of  Adam"  (cp.  Martin's  edition  II,  64)  is,  I  believe, 
purely  fanciful.  So,  too,  with  Singer's  interpretation  (p.  49)  of  the 
name  as  equivalent  to  "Macedonian"   —   i.  e.  Alexander  the  Great  — 


Wolfram's  Parzival  317 

to  his  son  Frimutel,  and  to  Frimutel's  son,  Anfortas  (Amfor- 
tas),9  who  was  Perceval's  maternal  uncle  and  keeper  of  the  Grail 
at  the  time  that  Perceval  visited  the  Grail  castle.  Thus  the  Grail 
Kings,  like  their  kinsman,  Perceval's  father,  are  Angevins.  — 
Again,  in  the  concluding  paragraph  of  his  poem  (827,  Iff.), 
Wolfram  says  that  if  Chretien  de  Troyes  has  not  told  the  story 
of  the  Grail  correctly,  that  may  well  arouse  the  anger  of  Kyot, 


on  the  basis  of  later  mediaeval  conceptions  of  that  hero's  union  with 
a  fay.  Wolfram  had  already  (56,  17ff.)  mentioned  Mazadan  as  an 
ancestor  of  Gahmuret  (as  well  as  Uther  Pendragon)  by  a  fay,  named 
Terdelaschoye  (Tere  de  la  joie),  who  had  carried  him  off  to  Feimurgan 
(Fee  Morgan).  Through  a  blunder  he  has  here  —  as  elsewhere 
(400,  8,  496, 8,  585,  14f.)  —  given  the  name  of  the  fay  to  the 
land  and  vice  versa.  I  cannot  agree,  however,  with  Singer's  estimate, 
p.  49,  of  the  decisive  value  of  this  blunder  in  proving  the  existence 
of  Kyot.  It  sprang,  no  doubt,  from  the  poet's  misunderstanding  of 
some  French  text,  but  his  French  reading  was  not  confined  to  poems 
on  Perceval.  It  is  one  of  the  proper  names  in  Wolfram  which  still 
await  a  satisfactory  explanation. 

8  In  Wolfram's  poem,  240,  24,  Parzival,  on  his  first  visit  to  the 
Grail  castle,  saw  this  beautiful  old  man  lying  on  a  bed  in  a  chamber 
apart.  Afterwards,  Trevrizent,  501,  22,  explains  that  this  was  Titurel, 
the  first  person  to  whom  the  Grail  was  committed  (first  Grail  King). 
The  name,  which  Wolfram,  doubtless,  took  from  Hartmann  von  Aue's 
Erec,  (1.  1650),  is,  probably,  derived  from  French  Tydorel,  the  name 
of  the  hero  af  a  Breton  lax.  The  stories  of  the  two  characters, 
however,  are  not  connected. 

Titurel  corresponds  to  the  Grail  King's  (Fisher  King's)  father, 
who  is  described  in  Chretien's  Perceval,  11.  6378 — 6393,  as  being 
sustained  solely  by  a  sacred  wafer,  which  was  brought  to  him  in  the 
Grail,  and  as  not  having  left  his  room  for  fifteen  years.  It  will  be 
noted,  however,  that  Titurel  is  grandfather,  not  father,  of  the  actual 
Grail  King,  as  in  Chretien.  The  French  poet,  indeed,  does  not  mention 
the  Grail  King's  grandfather,  nor  does  he  give  definite  names  either 
to  the  Grail  King  or  his  father.  The  conferring  of  definite  names  on 
persons  who  are  left  unnamed  in  Chretien  is  found  all  through  the 
Parzival.  This  tendency  is  not  confined  to  Wolfram.  We  find  it 
throughout  Arthurian  romance.  The  later  a  romance  is,  the  more 
liberal  it  is  with  names. 

9  OFr.  Enfertez  (Enfermetez)  =  "Infirmity".  In  such  Old  French 
words  an-,  am-,  instead  of  en-,  was  a  common  variant  in  the  spelling. 


318  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

who  has  given  us  the  correct  version.  In  this  passage  he  speaks 
of  Kyot  again  as  a  Provencal.  The  name  is,  doubtless,  identical 
with  French  Guiot  and  we  know  of  two  writers  of  that  name  in 
mediaeval  French  literature.  One  of  these  was  Guiot  de  Provins 
(a  contemporary  of  Wolfram's),  who  composed  some  lyrics  in  the 
style  of  the  amour  courtois,  but  is  best  known  as  author  of  the 
so-called  Bible,10  which  is  a  satirical  work  on  contemporary  so- 
ciety. Some  critics  have  been  inclined  to  accept  this  writer  as 
Wolfram's  Kyot  and  to  explain  the  German  poet's  designation 
of  him  as  a  Provencal  as  due  to  a  misunderstanding  of  the  French 
place-name,  Provins,  for  the  name  of  the  famous  country,  Pro- 
vence.11  But  Guiot's  extant  works  are  of  a  totally  different  cha- 


10  The  works  of  Guiot  de  Provins  have  been  recently  (1915) 
reedited  by  John  Orr  in  the  Manchester  University  Studies. 

11  The  most  recent  argument  for  the  identification  is  E.  Brugger's, 
Archiv  fur  das  Studium  der  neueren  Sprachen,  CXVIII,  233 f. 
(1907).  Brugger,  of  course,  assumes  a  French  original  (by  Guiot  de 
Provins)  as  Chretien's  source,  and  ascribes  Wolfram's  Provenzal  to 
an  error  on  the  part  of  the  German  poet.  —  For  earlier  arguments 
in  favor  of  the  identification  (which  K.  Wackernagel,  Altfranzosische 
Lieder  und  Leiche,  p.  191,  Basel,  1846,  was  the  first  to  suggest) 
see,  especially,  San  Marte  (A.  Schulz),  "Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  und 
Guiot  von  Provins",  Germania,  III,  445 ff.  (1858)  and  Parzival- 
studien,  I,  (Halle,  1861). 

In  his  "Wolfram  und  Kiot",  Zs.  /.  deutsche  Philologie,  XXXVIHff. 
198ff.  (1906),  Paul  Hagen  argues  that  Wolfram  follows  his  (hypo- 
thetical lost)  original  in  the  closest  manner.  But  this  view  of  the 
German  poet's  relation  to  his  source  adds  new  difficulties  to  the 
acceptance  of  the  work  of  a  Provencal  lyric  poet  as  that  source;  for, 
according  to  the  Parzival,  158,  13ff.,  this  source  states  ("Als  uns 
diu  aventiure  giht")  that  no  painter  from  Kbln  or  Maastricht  (well- 
known  art-centers  in  those  days)  could  have  designed  a  more  perfect 
figure  than  Parzival's  was,  as  he  appeared  on  horseback,  when  he  met 
Iwanet.  A  Provengal  surely,  would  never  have  hit  upon  such  an 
image.  Hagen,  consequently,  ascribes  Wolfram's  citation  of  Kyot  to 
an  error  and  proposes  as  the  real  author  of  the  sources  of  the  Parzival 
Philip  of  Poitiers,  later  Bishop  of  Durham,  who  accompanied  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion  to  Steiermark,  on  the  latter 's  return  from  Palestine 
in  1192.  His  main  reasons  for  doing  so  are  that  Trevrezent's  expe- 
dition, 496,  Iff.,  follows  nearly  the  same  course  as  Richard's  journey, 


Wolfram's  Parzival  319 

racter  from  Wolfram's  poem  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
he  ever  wrote  a  romance.12  There  was,  apparently,  another  Guiot 
of  the  same  period  who  is  only  known  from  an  allusion  in  a  poem 
of  the  thirteenth  century  as  the  author  of  a  (lost)  tale  of  incest.13 

that  Philip  was  deeply  attached  to  the  House  of  Anjou  (which  the 
Parzival  was  supposed  to  glorify  and  to  which  Richard  I  belonged), 
and  that  he  knew  the  cities  above-mentioned,  for  he  attended  the 
election  of  Otto  IV,  Emperor  of  Germany,  at  Koln  (Cologne)  in  1198. 

This  wild  theory,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  not  gained  a  single 
adherent.  —  Hagen  is  so  loath  to  grant  Wolfram  any  imaginative 
capacity  whatever  that  he  even  regards  the  Titurel  as  adopted  from 
another  work  by  the  same  person  who  wrote  the  (supposed)  source  of 
the  Parzival.  In  respect  to  this  theory,  too,  I  believe,  he  stands 
alone. 

12  The  fact  that  the  extant  works  of  Guiot  de  Provins  are  so 
different  from  Wolfram's  Parzival  should  be  given  greater  weight  than 
Brugger  is  willing  to  admit.  None  of  them,  it  will  be  noted,  are 
narrative  poems,  and  there  is  no  evidence  at  all  that  he  ever  wrote 
a  narrative  poem.  Moreover,  what  ground  do  his  extant  works  afford 
us  for  expecting  from  the  author's  pen  a  narrative  of  the  most  bizarre 
quality,  like  the  Gahmuret  and  Feirefiz  episodes  in  the  Parzival? 
The  distinctive  quality  of  the  best  of  these  works  —  the  Bible  — 
is  its  shrewd  common  sense,  enlivened  by  a  racy  vein  of  satirical  humor. 
But  whatever  may  be  his  merits,  the  author's  muse  is  pedestrian, 
indeed,  as  compared  with  Wolfram's.  Moreover,  Singer,  p.  43,  aptly 
points  out  that  there  is  not  a  trace  of  Wolfram's  obscurity  in  Guiot 
de  Provins  and  that  the  latter,  instead  of  idealizing  the  Knights  Templars, 
speaks  disparagingly  of  them.  Against  such  considerations,  the  few 
details  of  parallelism  between  Guiot's  genuine  writings  and  the  Parzival 
have  no  weight.  The  point  has  sometimes  been  made,  that  in  his 
Willehalm  Wolfram  renders  the  French  place-name  Provins  correctly 
by  Provis  (which  would  be  its  regular  equivalent  in  Middle  High 
German)  and  hence  that  he  would  not  have  confounded  Provins  and 
Provence  in  his  Parzival.  Willehalm,  however,  is  later  than  Parzival, 
and,  hence,  as  Brugger  op.  cit.  p.  233,  note  1,  observes,  Wolfram 
might  have  become  better  informed  in  the  interval  as  to  the  differences 
between  the  two. 

G.  Grober,  who  first  printed  the  extract  that  concerns  us,  in 
his  Grundriss,  I,  430,  note  2,  speaks  of  the  poem  as  a  miracle  of 
the  thirteenth  century  from  a  MS.  of  the  Arsenal  library,  but  gives 
it  no  nearer  dating.  The  passage  is  reproduced  somewhat  more  fully 
in  W.  Foerster's   large   edition   (1890)    of   Chretien's   Cliges,    p.  XIII. 


320  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

But  in  this  same  passage  —  a  list  of  authors  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury —  Chretien  is  spoken  of  as  author  of  the  Perceval,  and  if 
the  Guiot  in  question  had  written  a  poem  on  the  Grail,  no  doubt, 
the  fact  would  have  been  mentioned.14 

Nevertheless,  it  is  argued  that  Kyot  must  have  been  a  real  per- 
son, for  only  a  Frenchman  —  indeed,  only  an  Angevin  or  one 

The  writer  is  contrasting  the  low  estate  of  poetry  in  his  own  day  with 
the  different  conditions  that  prevailed  in  the  former  age.  In  this 
connection  he  gives  a  list  of  the  poetical  celebrities  of  this  former  age 
(the  twelfth  century),  which  comprises  the  names  of  Gautier  d' Arras, 
Chretien  and  our  Guiot,  among  others.     He  says  of  Guiot: 

"Et  Guios  qui  maint  bel  miracle 
Traita  de  cele  damoisele 
Qui  sen  pere  enfante  pucele," 

and  eleven  lines  further  down: 

"Mais  d'aus  tous  me  tieg  a  Wiot, 
Por  ce  c'ainc  ne  vol  rimer  mot 
Por  qu'il  i  eust  faussete,  etc." 

Brugger,  loc.  cit.  p.  233  (including  notes  2  and  3)  endeavors  to 
prove  that  this  Guiot,  too,  is  identical  with  Guiot  de  Provins  and 
Wolfram's  Kyot,  but  the  thread  of  his  argument  is  tenuous  to  the  last 
degree,  especially  as  regards  Kyot.  Even  if  the  miracle  referred  to. 
in  the  above-quoted  extract  did  not  belong  to  the  literary  genre  of 
that  name,  it  must  have  been  a  religious  poem  of  a  quite  limited 
scope  —  which  would  certainly  not  bring  the  author,  whether  he  was 
Guiot  de  Provins  or  not,  very  close  to  a  poem  like  Wolfram's  Parzival. 
Brugger  observes  that  composers  of  lyrics  (Cp.  Wolfram's  la  schantiuref 
416,  21)  like  Chretien,  also,  often  wrote  romances.  On  the  other  hand, 
however,  this  was,  of  course,  frequently  not  the  case. 

14  This  point  is  made  by  W.  Foerster,  p.  201  of  the  Introduction 
to  his  Chretien  Wbrterhuch  (Halle,  1914).  The  section  of  this  Intro- 
duction (pp.  187ff.)  entitled  Wolfram  und  sein  Kyot  and  W.  Golther's 
address,  Parzival  und  der  Gral  in  deutscher  Sage  des  Mittelalters 
und  der  Neuzeit  (Rostock,  1910),  along  with  Lichtenstein's  article, 
give  the  strongest  presentation  of  the  case  against  the  reality  of 
Wolfram's  Kyot.  Golther's  address  is  easily  accessible  in  his  Zur 
deutschen  Sage  und  Dichtung,  pp.  154ff.  (Leipzig,  1911). 

The  couplet  in  the  anonymous  miracle  about  Chretien  runs  as 
follows : 

"Et  Crestiens  qui  mout  bel  dist 
Quant  Cleget  et  Percheval  fist. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  321 

whose  patron  was  of  the  house  of  Anjou  —  would  have  been  inter- 
ested in  magnifying  the  Angevin  dynasty  by  connecting  the  here 
of  the  poem  and  the  Grail  Kings  generally  with  that  house.15  But 
there  is  more  than  one  possible  explanation  of  this.  First,  it  is 
to  be  observed  that  there  is  no  personal  allusion  or  note  in  these 
passages  about  Anjou.  It  is  said  (6,  26),  that  "Anschowe" 
(presumably,  Anjou)  is  Gahmuret's  country  and  that  Kyot  found 
the  story  of  the  Grail  in  a  chronicle  of  that  land,  but  we  hear 
nothing  more  about  it.  In  Wolfram's  time  the  rulers  of  Anjou, 
being  also  kings  of  England,  were  —  or  had  been  a  short  time 
before  —  the  most  powerful  reigning  house  in  Europe.  Moreover, 
they  were  closely  connected  with  the  great  family  of  Guelphs  in 
North  Germany,  whose  influence  extended  to  the  court  of  Wolf- 
ram's patron,  Hermann  of  Thuringen.  If  Wolfram,  then,  wished 
to  exalt  his  hero,  by  connecting  him  with  some  actual  dynasty 
of  the  time,  none  would  more  naturally  suggest  itself  to  him  than 
the  dynasty  of  Anjou.  It  is  even  more  likely,  however,  that  the 
poet's  relations  with  the  Austrian  noble  family  of  " Anschowe"  are 
responsible  for  his  fancy  of  making  his  hero  belong  to  the  world- 
famous  house  of  the  same  name.16 


15  la  his  edition  of  the  Parzival,  pp.  XLff.,  Martin  even  goes 
so  far  as  to  identify  the  hero  of  Wolfram's  poem  with  a  definite  Count 
of  Anjou,  viz.  Fulco  (Fouques),  paternal  grandfather  of  Henry  II  of 
England.  He  was  a  Templar  and  King  of  Jerusalem,  1131 — 1143. 
The  parallel  which  Martin  draws  is  throughout  extremely  forced.  For 
similar  speculations  before  Martin,  cp.  Wechssler,  Sage  vom  heiligen 
Gral,  pp.  1741,  and  J.  F.  D.  Blote's  criticism  of  the  same,  Anzeiger 
f.  d.  Altertum,  XLIII,  350 ff.  According  to  Wechssler,  Wolfram  was 
inspired  to  connect  the  house  of  Anjou  with  Perceval  by  the  fact  that 
the  house  of  Bouillon  had  been  connected  with  the  Swan-Knight. 

In  connection  with  these  matters,  it  has  been  observed  that  no 
Frenchman  would  have  made  Anjou  a  kingdom,  as  Wolfram  (5,25)  does. 
The  heraldic  figure  in  the  escutcheon  of  England,  in  the  early  thirteenth 
century,  which  Martin  mentions,  viz.  a  black  leopard,  does  not  accord 
very  exactly,  after  all,  with  the  panther,  Perceval's  crest. 

10  "Ansowe",  "Antschau",  was  in  the  Austrian  province  of  Steier- 
mark,  with  which,  according  to  many  indications,  Wolfram  had  some 
intimate  connection.  Note  the  following  details  bearing  on  the  subject: 
Gandm's  crest  is  a  panther,  (101,  7).    This  figure  was,  also,  the  crest 


322  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

It  is  most  probable,  then,  that  in  these  appeals  to  Kyot  Wolfram 
was  merely  indulging  in  the  common  mediaeval  trick  of  bolster- 
ing up  his  own  inventions  with  an  imaginary  authority.17  Nobody 
disputes  that,  for  the  part  of  his  poem  which  corresponds  to  Chre- 
tien, he  stands  close  to  the  latter  —  I  would,  myself,  say,  follows 
him  closely,  for  at  times  they  agree  word  for  word.18  On  the  other 

on  the  escutcheon  of  Steiermark.  Now,  from  early  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  burgrayes  of  Steyer  were  united  by  marriage  with  a  noble 
family  that  took  its  name  from  Antschau.  Moreover,  in  1216,  we 
find  a  nobleman  of  this  neighborhood,  Ulrich  von  Stubenberg,  on  an 
expedition  to  the  Holy  Land,  using  precisely  the  same  heraldic  device 
as  Gahmuret  (Parzival,  14,  27 ff.),  viz.  a  silver  anchor  with  a  gold 
rope  wrapped  around  it.  Furthermore,  Gandin,  Gahmuret's  father,  as 
we  are  told  by  Trevrezent  in  the  Parzival  (498,  25),  was  named 
after  Gandine  (Gandein)  in  Steiermark.  —  On  all  these  matters  see 
more  fully  A.  von  Siegenfeld,  Das  Landeswappen  Sieiermarks,  pp.  296 ff. 
(Graz,  1901),  and  A.  Sehonbach,  Anzeiger  fiir  deutsches  Altertum, 
XXVII,  149ff.  (1903). 

1 7  This  practice  of  mediaeval  writers  is  well-known.  For  a  valuable 
article  on  the  subject,  with  special  reference  to  the  Kyot  problem 
(and  denying  Kyot's  existence),  see  F.  Wilhelm,  "Uber  fabulistische 
Quellenangaben",  PBB,  XXXIII,  28.6 ff.  (1908).  Such  fictions  did  not 
carry  with  them  the  stigma  then  that  they  now  do.  It  has  been 
urged,  however,  that  Wolfram's  whole  poem  shows  that  he  was  parti- 
cularly honest  and  that  he  must  have  been,  consequently,  incapable 
of  such  fraudulent  statements.  But,  after  all,  every  man  is  the  creature 
of  his  age,  and  a  "Schalk",  like  Wolfram,  would  be  under  peculiar 
temptation  to  avail  himself  of  the  general  license  in  this  regard. 
Besides,  as  we  shall  see  below,  we  know  that  he  did  falsely  attribute 
the  original  of  his   Willehalm  to  Chretien  de  Troyes. 

18  For  more  or  less  systematic  comparisons  of  Wolfram's  text 
with  Chretien's  cp.  Alfred  Rochat,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  und 
Chretien's  de  Troyes",  Germania,  III,  81  ff.  (1858),  Otto  Ktipp,  "Die 
unmittelbaren  Quellen  des  Parzival  von  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach", 
Zs.f.  deutsche  Philologie,  XVII,  Iff.  (1885),  and,  especially,  J.  Lichten- 
stein,  "Zur  Parzivalfrage",  PBB,  XXII,  Iff.  (1897).  The  last-named 
article  deals  with  the  Parzival  from  almost  every  point  of  view,  and, 
in  my  opinion,  nothing  better  has  been  written  about  the  poem.  See, 
too,  A.  Birch -Hirschf eld,  Die  Sage  vom  Gral,  pp.  243 ff.  (Leipzig, 
1877)  for  a  very  important  comparison  of  the  portions  of  the  two  poems 
that  relate  to  Grail  matters. 

In  Wolfram  there  are  many  misunderstandings  of  Chretien's  text 


Wolfram  s  Parzival  323 

hand,  that  the  additions  are  Wolfram's  own  is  shown  by  their 
character.  There  is  nothing  similar  to  them  in  the  literature  of 
the  French  romances.19  We  have  in  the  Parzival  a  pure  Arthurian 
romance  introduced  by  what  appears  almost  as  a  travesty  on  the 
stock  situations  in  the  French  Arthurian  romances.  Just  as  the 
heroes  of  the  latter,  attracted  by  Arthur's  fame,  usually  go  to 
his  court,  enroll  themselves  among  his  knights,  and  from  this 
court  as  a  centre  set  forth  on  adventures,  here  we  find  the  hero 
of  the  preliminary  episodes,  Gahmuret,  drawn  by  the  same  mo- 
tives to  the  court  of  the  Caliph  of  Bagdad,  who,  as  Wolfram  is 
careful  to  explain,  corresponds  in  the  heathen  world  to  the  Chris- 
tian Pope  at  Rome.  Then  comes  this  same  hero's  championship 
and  rescue  of  the  black  pagan  heroine,  Belacane,  queen  of  Za- 
zamanc  in  Africa,  when  she  is  besieged  by  a  Christian  (Scottish) 
army,  and  their  subsequent  marriage.  This  situation  has,  of  course, 
numerous  parallels  in  the  French  Arthurian  romances  —  only 
the  heroine  in  such  cases  is  always  white  and  a  Christian.  Per- 
haps, a  remembrance  of  the  loves  of  Guillaume  d 'Orange  and 
Orable  —  who,  to  be  sure,  receives  baptism  —  or  of  some  other 
Christian  knight  and  fair  Saracen  princess  has  influenced  this 
latter  episode.  Especially  bizarre  is  the  impression  which  is  pro- 
duced by  the  piebald  Feirefiz  —  as  variegated  in  his  color  as  a 
magpie,  says  Wolfram  —  the  offspring  of  the  union  of  the  white 
hero  and  the  black  heroine. 

As  regards,  still  further,  the  books  (XIV — XVI)  at  the  end 
of  the  Parzival,  which  carry  the  narrative  beyond  the  limits  of 
Chretien's  Perceval,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  Book  XVI,  in  which 
the  hero  finally  achieves  the  quest  of  the  Grail,  is  indissolubly 


which  show  that  he  used  Chretien  directly.  Cp.  Lichtenstein,  op.  cit.f 
p.  57,  notes  1  and  2.  If  Kyot  really  existed,  his  text  in  these  places 
must  have  been  identical  with  Chretien's. 

19  This  remains  true  of  the  coloring  which  is  given  to  such  additions 
and  of  the  general  conceptions  by  which  they  are  inspired,  even  if 
one  accepts  at  the  same  value  as  Singer  the  interesting  list  of  parallels 
between  Wolfram,  on  the  one  hand,  and  French  and  Provencal  writers, 
on  the  other,  in  respect  to  phrase  and  imagery,  which  he  has  collected. 
pp.  15ff. 


324  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

connected  with  the  characteristic  conceptions  of  the  Grail  which 
had  already  been  developed  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  poem  — 
especially  the  Fifth  and  Ninth.  Now,  since  even  the  adherents 
of  Kyot  generally  acknowledge  that  these  conceptions  originated 
with  Wolfram  and  constitute  his  chief  glory,  as  far  as  the  Parzival 
is  concerned,  there  is  no  valid  ground  for  denying  to  him  the  sole 
responsibility  for  this  part  of  his  poem.  And,  after  all,  why  should 
we  refuse  to  concede  to  Wolfram  any  power  of  invention?  In 
respect  to  originality  of  style,20  of  moral  conceptions,  and  of  ideas, 

20  Singer,  pp.  5ff.,  it  is  true,  contends  that  this  style  (really 
Kyot's  according  to  his  theory)  —  tortuous,  barock,  but  never  failing 
in  strength  —  was  formed  on  the  trobar  ejus  (style  purposely  obscure) 
of  certain  Provengal  lyrical  poets,  and,  in  proof  thereof,  assembles  the 
parallels  referred  to  in  the  last  note.  Many  of  these  phrases  and 
images,  however,  are  such  as  might  suggest  themselves  independently 
to  contemporary  authors  in  different  lands.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
considerable  proportion  of  them  did,  no  doubt,  come  to  Wolfram,  directly 
or  indirectly,  from  the  French.  But,  to  say  nothing  of  those  elements 
which  may  have  reached  him  from  that  quarter  through  German 
channels,  he  was,  of  course,  acquainted  with  other  French  books,  besides 
the  source  of  the  Parzival.  He  translated  a  chanson  de  geste,  and 
it  is  purely  gratuitous  to  set  down  to  Kyot's  account,  and  not  to  his, 
the  knowledge  of  the  two  romances  of  antiquity,  the  Roman  de  Troie 
and  the  Roman  de  Thebes,  which  his  work  evinces  (cp.  Singer, 
pp.  221,  1041). 

The  style  of  the  Parzival  —  one  of  the  most  individual  in 
mediaeval  literature  —  is  substantially  the  same  as  that  of  the  Wille- 
halm  and  Titurel.  Surely,  the  natural  inference  from  this  state  of 
things  is  that  the  style  in  question  was  the  expression  of  the  author's 
own  personality,  not  (as  Singer,  p.  126,  supposes)  that  he  acquired  it 
from  Kyot  and  that  it  stuck  to  him  later  in  his  Willehalm  (to  say 
nothing  of  the  Titurel),  although  there  was  no  suggestion  of  it  in 
the  French  source  of  this  poem. 

In  a  far  fetched  manner,  Singer,  p.  10,  seeks  still  further  support 
for  his  theory  as  to  the  existence  of  a  French  poem,  in  the  obscure 
style,  on  Perceval  from  a  supposed  allusion  to  such  a  poem  in  the 
late  metrical  romance,  Escanor,  11.  325  ff.  (latter  part  of  the  thirteenth 
century).  Kay  is  here  charging  Perceval  unjustifiably  with  obscurity 
of  speech;  but  this  is,  plainly,  merely  a  sarcastic  thrust  at  Perceval 
as  a  Welshman,  for  the  stupidity  of  the  Welsh  was  proverbial  in  the 
romances. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  325 

in  general,  he  is  recognized  as  superior  to  all  of  his  predecessors 
in  mediaeval  poetry  and  unequalled  among  romance-writers  even 
to  the  end  of  the  period.  He  impresses  his  personality  on  almost 
every  line  of  his  poem  and  gives  a  subjective  coloring  to  every 
part  of  his  work.  Why,  then,  should  we  deny  him  every  spark 
of  narrative  originality?  After  all,  the  mere  incidents  in  these 
additions  require  no  great  creative  gift,  e.  g.  a  young  knight's 
service  at  the  court  of  a  famous  monarch,  his  rescue  of  a  besieged 
lady,21  a  fight  between  friends  or  relatives  that  do  not  recognize 
each  other.  These  are  all  commonplaces  of  the  romances.  It  is 
the  new  setting,  however,  which  is  given  these  incidents,  the  ori- 
ginality of  conception  with  which  such  incidents  are  invested  and 
the  grotesque  and  vivid  detail  with  which  they  are  set  forth  that 
count.  Now,  these  latter  features  are  certainly  Wolfram's  own, 
so  that  there  is  no  ground  for  depriving  him  of  the  very  moderate 
credit  which  is  his  due  for  the  former.  The  creative  act  here  is 
insignificant  as  compared  with  that  which  is  involved  in  the  sub- 
lime invention  of  the  world-wide  Grail  community,  which  is  in- 
disputably his. 

Moreover,  we  have  the  splendid  Titarel  fragments  before  us  — 
the  finest  of  all  of  Wolfram's  compositions  —  to  emphasize  the 
falsity  of  the  view  that,  where  narrative  elements  are  concerned, 
he  was  unable  to  rise  above  the  level  of  a  slavish  reproduction  of 
his  originals.  Aside  from  the  superb  lyrical  passion  of  these  frag- 
ments, they  offer  a  train  of  incidents  which  none  but  the  most 
extravagant  adherents  of  Kyot22  have  denied  to  Wolfram's  in- 
vention. They  are  not  provided  with  the  novel  setting  of  the 
books  of  the  Parzival  in  which  Gahmuret  is  the  principal  figure, 
but  otherwise  they  show  an  equal  capacity  for  new  combinations 
of  old  motifs. 

21  Gr.  A.  Heinrich,  Le  Parckal  de  Wolfram  d'Eschenbach  et 
la  Ugende  du  Saint-Graal,  p.  192  (Paris,  1855)  has  plausibly  sug- 
gested that  the  siege  of  Patelamunt  and  the  deliverance  of  Belacane 
were  imitated  from  the  similar  siege  of  Pelrapeire  and  deliverance  of 
Condwiramurs. 

29  For  example,  P.  Hagen,  "Wolfram  und  Kiot",  Zs.  /.  d.  Ph., 
XXXVIII,  Iff.  (1906). 


326  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

In  view  of  the  considerations  which  I  have  just  presented, 
it  seems  most  likely  that  Wolfram  had  no  other  story  concerning 
Perceval  and  the  Grail  than  Chretien's  before  him  and  that  he 
deliberately  tried  to  conceal  his  obligations  to  Chretien  by  the 
invention  of  an  imaginary  authority  whom  he  arrays  against  the 
French  poet.23  It  has  been  suggested  that  he  put  forward  this  hoax, 

28  All  the  scholars  cited  p.  322  note  18,  above,  except  Ktipp,  con- 
clude that  Wolfram's  Kyot  was  a  .fiction.  The  same  opinion  has  been 
held,  also,  by  the  following,  among  others:  K.  Simrock  (in  the  later 
editions  of  his  translations  of  Wolfram's  Parzival  and  Titurel,  of 
which  the  fifth  appeared  at  Stuttgart  in  1876),  F.  Zarncke(see  pp.  317ff. 
of  his  "Zur  Geschichte  der  Gralsage",  PBB.,  HI,  304ff.  1876),  G. 
Paris,  (Societe  Historique  et  Cercle  Saint-Simon,  Bulletin  2,  p.  100, 
Paris  1883,  and  Romania,  XXII,  166),  0.  Behaghel,  Literaturblatt 
for  1898,  Cols.  115,  263,  W.  Golther  in  the  address  cited  above  (as 
against  his  earlier  belief  in  Kyot's  existence,  Eomanische  Forschungen, 
V.  115ff.),  W.  Foerster,  pp.  187ff.  of  the  Introduction  to  his  Chretien 
Worterbuch  (Halle,  1914). 

Besides  Kiipp,  the  following  are  some  of  the  scholars  who  have 
expressed  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  Kyot:  San  Marte,  Germania,  HI, 
445 ff.,  (1858)  and  elsewhere,  K.  Bartsch,  in  his  successive  editions  of 
the  Parzival  and  Titurel,  T.  Urbach,  Tiber  den  Stand  der  Frage 
nach  den  Quellen  des  Parzival,  Programm,  Zwickau,  1872,  R.  Heinzel, 
"Uber  Wolframs  von  Eschenbach  Parzival/'  Sitzungsberichte  der 
Kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften  in  Wien:  philosophisch- 
historische  Classe,  Band  130,  Wien,  1894,  W.  Hertz,  in  the  successive 
editions  of  his  translation  of  the  Parzival,  E.  Wechssler,  Die  Sage 
vom  heiligen  Gral,  pp.  164ff.,  Halle,  1898,  where  there  is  the  best 
summary  of  arguments  on  the  subject,  Paul  Hagen,  Der  Gral,  S trass- 
burg,  1900,  and  in  various  articles.  Add  to  the  above  Miss  J.  L. 
Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  I,  72,  93,  et  passim,  London,  1906, 
E.  Brugger  in  the  article  quoted  above  and  elsewhere,  and  S.  Singer, 
"Uber  die  Quelle  von  Wolframs  Parzival,"  Zs.  f  d.  A.,  XLIV,  321  ff. 
(1900)  and  in  his  Wolframs  Stil  und  der  Stoff  des  Parzival.  Singer 
concludes  that  there  were  three  important  French  Grail  romances, 
now  lost:  1.  The  oldest  of  all,  in  which  the  hero  was  Gawain,  not 
Perceval.  2.  The  common  source  of  Chretien  and  Kyot.  3.  Kyot. 
Wolfram's  immediate  source,  according  to  this  scholar,  was  Kyot,  who, 
in  turn,  derived  his  obscure  style  from  the  Provengal  poets.  For  a 
good  refutation  of  this  artificial  system  of  Singer's  cp.  W.  Golther, 
Literaturblatt,  March-April,  1918,  cols.  86 tf. 

According  to  W.  Golther,   Zur  deutschen  Sage  und  Dichtung, 


Wolfram's  Parzival  327 

so  as  not  to  seem  on  a  level  with  the  rival  poet,  Hartmann  von 
Aue,  who  had  also  translated  a  romance  of  Chretien's.24  Besides, 
Wolfram  had  a  strong  sense  of  humor,  and  in  an  age  when  no  moral 
discredit  attached  to  the  citation  of  fictitious  authorities,  he  might 
well  take  pleasure  in  laughing  at  his  readers  in  his  sleeve,  in  pal- 
ming off  his  own  inventions  on  the  public  as  drawn  from  a  poem 
that  no  one  had  ever  heard  of.25  In  any  event,  a  Provencal  poet 
who  wrote  in  French  and  not  in  his  native  tongue  was  in  the  Middle 
Ages  a  most  improbable  person,  and  the  improbability  is  increased 
when  Wolfram  calls  him  (416,  21)  la  schantiure  (=  chanteur, 
incorrectly  feminine),  for  this  term  would  apply  to  a  writer  of 
songs,  not  of  romances.26  Note,  too,  that  through  some  blunder 
Wolfram  (469,  2ff.)  conceives  of  the  Grail  as  a  stone.27  But  no 
Provencal  would  have  made  this  mistake;  for  the  word  for  the 
Grail,  Provencal  grazal,  was   especially  well-known  in  Provence 

p.  167,  Wolfram,  on  purpose,  wrongly  ascribed  Chretien's  poem  to  Guiot 
de  Provins.  This  particular  poet,  he  thinks,  was  suggested  to  him, 
very  likely,  because  the  MS.  of  Chretien's  Perceval  which  he  used 
was  written  by  a  scribe,  Guiot,  whose  name  was  recorded  at  the  end 
of  the  copy.  This  is  the  name  of  the  copyist  of  the  Yvain  in  MS. 
794  (Bibl.  Nat.).  —  Golther's  conjecture  is  plausible,  but  some  other 
chance  circumstance  might  have  led  equally  well  to  Wolfram's  adopting 
just  this  name. 

Cp.  Foerster,  Chretien  Wbrterbuch,  p.  198*. 

This  is  F.  Zarncke's  view,  who  speaks  of  Wolfram  as  a  "Schalk". 
Cp.  PBB.,  Ill,  324. 

86  For  the  arguments  of  the  Kyot  advocates  in  regard  to  these 
matters,  especially  Brugger,  see  above,  pp.  318  ff.  notes.  Singer, 
p.  43,  adopts  the  view  that  the  MS.  lascantiure  should  be  devided 
Vascantiure  and  that  this  means  I' enchanteur.  There  is  no  reason, 
however,  as  far  as  one  can  see,  why  Kyot  should  be  called  an  "en- 
chanter", and  the  older  interpretation  is,  doubtless,  correct. 

27  The  stone  is  called,  he  says  (469,  7),  lapsit  exillis  —  which 
is  probably  a  corruption  of  lapis  de  cells.  For  a  discussion  of  the 
various  interpretations  of  the  term  cp.  J.  F.  D.  Blote,  Zs.  f.  d.  A., 
XLVII,  lOlff.  (1903).  Some  scholars  (cp.  Wechssler,  p.  167)  contend 
that,  after  all,  Wolfram  meant  by  stein  a  vessel,  but  there  is  no 
evidence  of  this  in  the  text.  He  was  probably  puzzled  by  the  word, 
Graal,  like  the  authors  of  the  Norwegian  saga  and  the  Peredur, 
respectively,    and    ended   by   interpreting   it   as   a  stone,    since  in  the 


24 
25 


328  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

(its  meaning  being  "dish")  and  it  is  in  use  there  to  this  day. 
Take,  too,  the  word  tailleor  (=  carving  dish  or  board)  which 
Wolfram  mis-translates  messer  (=  knife).  If  he  really  had  a 
completed  French  story  of  the  Grail  before  him,  he  would  not 
have  fallen  into  this  error.28  Equally  conclusive  as  to  the  hoax, 
it  would  seem,  is  the  fact29  that  in  the  first  passage  (416,  19 ff.) 
where  Wolfram  cites  Kyot  as  his  authority  he  is  really  following 
Heinrich  von  Veldeke  (Eneide,  11.  8633 ff.)™ 

There  is  other  evidence  that  Wolfram  did  not  shrink  from 
false  statements  where  they  served  his  purpose.   So,  in  his  Wille- 


Middle  Ages  (as  even  now)  marvellous  properties  were  so  often  imputed 
to  precious  stones. 

Singer,  pp.  83  ff.,  still  maintains  that  the  Grail  was  originally 
conceived  of  as  a  stone  and  that  Kyot  preserved  this  conception,  from 
whom  it  passed  to  Wolfram.  The  most  elaborate  defence  of  this  point 
of  view  is  Paul  Hagen's  Der  Gral  (Strassburg,  1900).  Cp.  p.  335, 
below. 

28  For  these  arguments  see  Foerster,  Chretien  Wbvtevbuch,  p.  201. 
As  an  explanation  of  the  misunderstanding  by  which  Wolfram 
conceived  of  the  Grail  as  a  precious  stone,  Foerster  here  suggests 
that  he  erroneously  connected  it  with  French  grais  (gres)  = 
sandstone.  —  ^Tailleor  is  found  in  Chretien's  description  of  the 
Grail  procession  in  his  Perceval  twice,  viz.,  11.  3193,  3249.  In  the 
rirst  line  it  is  applied  to  the  tailleov  (the  meaning  of  which  is  much 
debated),  borne  in  the  procession  by  one  of  the  Grail  maidens;  in  the 
second  line  it  is  used  of  a  dish  on  which  an  attendant  does  carving  at 
the  table  of  the  Grail  King.  There  is  a  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  the  tailleors  of  these  two  lines  are  the  same.  Wolfram  regarded 
them  as  different  —  hence  his  two  Messer  (234,  18,  490,  21  f.). 

Miss  Weston,  Sir  Perceval,  I,  162,  and  Singer,  pp.  88  f.,  stand 
alone,  I  believe,  in  denying  any  connection  between  Wolfram's  Messer 
and  Chretien's  tailleor.  Adopting,  it  would  seem,  a  suggestion  of 
Heinz  el's  (in  his  Grail  treatise,  p.  40),  Miss  Weston  tries  to  bring  the 
former  into  relations  with  the  Fecamp  blood-relic  which  plays  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  her  theory  of  Grail  origins.  But  we  know  of  no 
knives  being  among  the  relics  at  Fecamp.  For  a  refutation  of  this 
point  (about  the  Messer)  of  Miss  Weston's  cp.  J.  F.  D.  Blote,  Anzeiger 
fur  deutsches  Altertum,  XXXII,  24ff.  (1908). 

Cp.  Behaghel,  Literaturblatt  for  1898,  cols.  115,  263. 

Literaturblatt  for  1898,  cols.  115,  263. 


29 
30 


Wolfram's  Parzival  329 

halm  (125,  20),  which,  as  stated  above,  is  based  on  the  Old  French 
chanson  de  geste,  Aliscans,  he  pretends  that  his  authority  was 
Chretien  de  Troyes.  So,  too,  with  his  assertion  (Parzival,  115,25) 
that  he  did  not  know  how  to  read  or  write.  This  assertion,  which 
occurs  in  a  passage  that  is  wholly  humorous  in  its  character,  was 
widely  accepted  at  its  face  value,  as  long  as  the  old  romantio 
notions  about  the  origins  of  epic  poetry  were  held,  and  some  scho- 
lars still  take  it  literally,  but  it  seems  obvious  that  we  are  con- 
fronted here  with  a  falsehood.  The  writer  knew  French  and  para- 
phrased a  French  poem  (Chretien's)  of  more  than  10,000  lines. 
Add  to  this  that  his  work,  which  runs  to  nearly  25,000  lines,  is 
singularly  free  from  contradictions  and  inequalities.  There  is  not 
an  authenticated  case  in  history  of  an  uneducated  man's  composing 
a  work  of  anything  approaching  the  Parzival  in  extent,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  quality,  whether  with  or  without  the  aid  of  aman- 
uenses, and  this  fact,  of  itself,  justifies  an  attitude  of  skepticism, 
The  knowledge  of  French  which  he  possessed,  the  varied  learning 
which  he  displays,31  the  closeness,  with  which  he  follows  Chretien 


81  Cp.  his  liberal  use  of  Solinus  as  pointed  out  by  E.  Martin, 
Zur  Gralsage,  pp.  5ff.  —  also,  ibid.  pp.  9ff.,  the  great  quantity  of 
names,  drawn  from  different  sources.  Martin  accepts  Wolfram's  state- 
ment concerning  Kyot,  but  believes  that  he  introduced  these  names, 
himself,  into  his  poem  from  a  great  variety  of  other  sources.  P.  Hagen 
in  his  Der  Gral  (Strassburg,  1900)  and  "Untersuchungen  iiber  Kiot", 
Zs.  f  d.  A.,  XLV,  187ff.  has,  also,  shown  the  use  which  is  made  in 
the  Parzival  of  the  Bible,  (ultimately)  Oriental  sources,  the  so-called 
Letter  of  Pr ester  John,  etc.  He  imagines,  it  is  true,  that  Kyot,  not 
Wolfram,  is  responsible  for  all  this;  but,  unless  we  accept  the  German 
poet's  assertion  as  to  his  illiteracy,  there  is  no  ground  for  that  assumption. 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  the  strange  nomenclature  (drawn  from 
Solinus,  etc.)  of  Wolfram's  poem  which  I  have  noted  above  is  found 
mainly  in  those  parts  that  have  nothing  corresponding  in  Chretien's 
Perceval.  These  names  have  been  the  subject  of  much  special  study. 
Besides  Martin,  cp.  San  Marte,  "Uber  die  Eigennamen  im  Parzival 
des  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach",  Germania,  II,  385 ff.  (1857),  K.  Bartsch, 
"Die  Eigennamen  in  Wolframs  Parzival  una*  Titurel,"  Germanistische 
Studien  II,  lHff.  (Wien,  1875),  G.  Paris,  Bomania,  IV,  148ff. 
(1875),  the  notes  to  Hertz's  translation  of  the  Parzival.  The  Arabic 
names  of  the  planets  (782)  and  the  lines  about  precious  stones  (791) 


330  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  the  power  of  his  style,  which  German  critics  declare  to  be  the 
finest  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  their  language,  —  these  things  all 
prove  that  Wolfram  was  far  removed  from  illiteracy.  His  state- 
ment on  the  subject  was,  most  likely,  merely  a  humorous  mysti- 
fication, with  a  covert  hit  at  the  pretensions  to  learning  of  some 
contemporary  poets  —  perhaps,  above  all,  as  we  have  seen,  Hart- 
mann  von  Aue.32 

Let  us  review  somewhat  more  systematically,  though  briefly, 
the  contents  of  Wolfram's  Parzival,  parts  of  which  I  have  had 
occasion  to  refer  to  in  the  discussion  above. 

In  the  portion  which  he  has  prefixed  to  Chretien's  narrative, 
the  poet  represents  that  Perceval's  father  was  a  prince  of  Anjou, 
named  Gahmuret.  In  a  manner  which,  as  we  have  seen,  has  no 
parallel  in  the  French  romances  he  makes  this  Christian  knight 
enter  the  service  of  the  Caliph  of  Bagdad  (the  Baruc,  as  he  is 


and  the  men  who  were  learned  in  regard  to  the  same  (773,  22  ff.) 
came,  of  course,  from  learned  sources,  the  latter  from  Arnoldus  Saxo. 
For  Wolfram's  reading  in  French  literature  and,  probably,  Pro- 
vengal,  also,  see,  still  further,  Singer's  above-cited  treatise.  He  inter- 
prets, it  is  true,  such  evidences  of  wide  reading  in  the  Parzival  as 
proofs  oi  Kyot's  existence.  Among  other  things,  he  points  out  interesting 
borrowings  from  the  Roman  de  Thebes  (cp.  Antigone  and  Antikonie) 
in  the  German  poem. 

82  Even  Bartsch  (see  note  to  115,  27  in  his  edition  of  the  Parzi- 
val), although  accepting  Wolfram's  statement  concerning  his  illiteracy 
at  its  face  value,  sees  in  this  statement  a  hit  at  Hartmann.  Wolf- 
ram's position  is  somewhat  like  that  of  Burns,  as  expressed  in  the 
"Epistle  to  John  Lapraik":  he  upholds  nature  and  depreciates  learning. 
Wolfram,  on  the  other  hand,  owes  much,  of  course,  to  Hartmann  in 
respect  to  narrative  method.  He  has,  besides,  in  the  opinion  of  most 
scholars,  borrowed  from  him  a  large  number  of  names.  To  be  sure, 
this  is  denied  by  Singer,  pp.  56  ff.,  who  acknowledges  that  Wolfram 
was  well  acquainted  with  Hartmann 's  Erec,  but  argues  that,  in  such 
cases,  it  was  Kyot  who  drew  these  names  direct  from  the  French 
and  that  the  list  in  Hartmann,  indeed,  contains  spurious  late  additions 
derived  from  the  Parzival.  Granting,  however,  that  Singer's  views  as 
to  the  sources  of  these  names  in  the  Parzival  and  Hartmann  are 
correct  there  is  no  reason  why  Wolfram,  himself,  should  not  have 
drawn,  them  from  Chretien. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  331 

called).  He  becomes  famous  among  the  Saracens  and  weds  a 
Moorish  queen,  Belacane,  whose  noble  character  in  her  lover's  eyes 
more  than  offsets  her  heathen  faith.33  Later,  however,  as  he  longs 

8a  Brugger,  Heinrich  Morf  Festschrift,  59ff.,  has  argued  that 
Wolfram  used  for  this  prologue  the  same  source  that  the  author  of 
the  Livre  d'Artus  of  MS.  337  used  in  his  Baruch-Sagremor-Sebile 
episode  (Sommer's  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian  Romances,  VII, 
280 ff.).  This  common  source  he  supposes  to  be  a  lost  romance.  But 
the  episode  in  the  Livre  d'Artus  is  a  mere  variation  of  the  Clamedex- 
Perceval-Blanchefleur  episode  in  Chretien's  Perceval,  11.  1921  ff.,  the 
author  substituting  for  Blanchefleur  the  heathen  widow,  Sebile,  of  the 
Chanson  de  Saisnes.  This  accounts  for  the  chanson  de  geste  features 
of  the  episode,  which  Brugger  remarks  on.  In  the  Saisnes,  too,  in 
the  approved  style,  Sebile  is  baptized  before  being  married  to  her 
Christian  lover,  Baudouin.  Sarmenie,  in  the  Livre  d'Artus,  is  pro- 
bably a  corrupt  or  wilful  variant  of  Parmenie  of  the  Tristan  poems. 
As  far  as  Baruch  in  this  romance  is  concerned,  Brugger  speaks  of 
him  as  a  Christian,  but  this  is  not  certain.  Indeed,  inasmuch  as  he 
is  called  Li  Noirs  Cheualiers,  he  is  very  likely  a  dark-skinned  pagan, 
like  Sebile,  whom  he  persecutes.  The  author  gave  him  accordingly 
a  pagan  (Oriental)  name.  Baruch  is  still  a  common  name  among  the 
Jews.  Sommer  lists  it  in  the  Index  of  his  Vulgate  Version  as  the 
name  of  a  person  in  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Gral,  I,  193,  viz.,  as 
the  name  of  one  of  Mordred's  sons.  This,  however,  is  a  mistake.  It 
is  the  name  of  a  castle  that  belongs  to  one  of  these  sons. 

The  differences  between  Wolfram  and  the  Livre  d'Artus  episode 
are,  after  all,  very  marked. 

Brugger,  ibid.,  65  ff.,  like  Martin,  Zur  Gralsage,  p.  18,  and  Singer, 
Zs.  f  d.  A.,  XLIV,  323  ff.,  before  him,  and  Miss  Weston,  Morien, 
p.  15  (New  York,  1901),  since,  has  inferred  from  certain  resemblances 
between  the  tale  of  Feirefiz  and  the  Dutch  poem  Moriaen,  that  the 
two  drew  on  a  common  source  —  a  lost  French  poem.  The  latter 
is  embedded  in  the  vast  Dutch  (metrical)  Lancelot,  winch  was  edited 
by  W.  J.  Jonckbloet  (The  Hague,  1846—1849).  It  has  since  been 
edited  separately  by  Jan  Te  Winkel,  Roman  van  Moriaen  (Bibliotheek 
van  Middelnederlandsche  Letterkunde,  XX,  Groningen,  1878).  Despite 
the  contrary  opinion  of  the  editors,  Gaston  Paris  is,  doubtless,  right 
in  regarding  this  poem  not  as  an  original  Dutch  composition,  but  as 
a  translation  of  a  French  poem.  Cp.  Histoire  Litter  aire  de  la  France, 
XXX,  254.  According  to  the  story,  Agloval,  Perceval's  brother,  being 
in  the  land  of  the  Moors,  had  an  amour  with  a  princess  there,  but 
abandoned  her,   whilst  she  was  enceinte,   on  the  pretext  that  he  had 


332  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Bomance 

for  a  more  active  life,  he  makes  this  difference  of  religion  a  pretext 
for  leaving  her,  declaring  at  the  same  time  that  he  will  come  back 
to  her,  if  she  will  turn  Christian.  After  his  departure  Belacane 
gives  birth  to  a  son,  named  Feirefiz.  Gahmuret  returns  to  Europe 
by  way  of  Spain  and  in  a  tourney  in  Wales  wins  Herzeloyde,  queen 
of  Wales  and  Anjou  and  Norgales  (i.  e.  really,  North  Wales). 
He  marries  her,  despite  some  compunctions  which  the  memory  of 
Balacane  causes  him.  In  the  course  of  time  he  hears  that  the 
Baruc,  his  former  lord  in  the  East,  is  pressed  by  enemies. 
So,  under  the  influence  of  loyalty,  he  goes  to  this  monarch's  as- 
sistance, but  not  long  after  his  arrival  falls  a  victim  to  treachery 
—  a  heathen  broke  his  helmet  of  adamant  by  throwing  goat's  blood 
on  it  —  hence  he  was  exposed  to  the  fatal  wound  (105,  17ff.). 
Herzeloyde  gives  birth  to  Perceval  fourteen  days  after  his  father's 
death.     On  hearing  the  ill  news,  she  retires   to  the  forest  with 

to  go  in  search  of  Lancelot.  The  child  of  this  intrigue,  Moriaen,  when 
he  is  a  lad,  goes  forth  to  find  his  father  and  compel  him  to  right  this 
wrong  to  his  mother,  by  marrying  her.  He  comes  to  Arthur's  kingdom, 
makes  the  acquaintance  of  Gawain  and  others,  and,  in  the  end,  achieves 
his  object.  There  is  satisfactory  internal  evidence  that  Perceval,  and 
not  Agloval,  was  the  father  of  the  hero  in  the  French  original.  Apart 
from  the  fact  that  Perceval  in  this  hypothetical  French  romance  was, 
as  stated,  father,  and  not  brother,  of  the  character  concerned  (as  in 
Wolfram),  G.  Paris  (p.  253)  points  out  that  this  motif  of  a  son  seeking 
out  a.  faithless  father  and  compelling  him  to  marry  his  mother  occurs 
in  other  romances  of  the  period  and  is  here  linked  with  one  of  the 
commonplaces  of  mediaeval  romance  —  the  love  of  a  Saracen  princess 
for  a  Christian  knight.  He,  therefore,  —  rightly,  in  my  opinion,  — 
denies  any  connection  between  Moriaen  and  Parzival.  Paris,  however, 
should,  not  have  included  "le  roman  latin  de  Meriadoc"  among  the 
works  that  exhibit  the  motif  just  mentioned.  In  that  romance  (Historia 
Meriadoci)  the  hero's  parents  die  at  the  beginning  of  the  story.  Cp. 
my  edition,  Historia  Meriadoci  and  de  Ortu  Waluuanii,  pp.  4f. 

In  Bomania,  XXIV,  336 f.  (1895),  Lot  ascribes  a  Celtic  origin 
to  Morien  —  identifies  him  with  Mor  of  the  Black  Book  of  Caermarthen 
and  Book  of  Taliessin.  But  "Mor"  sounded  like  Maure  (=  Moor)  — 
hence,  says  Lot,  the  Dutch  or  French  author  conceived  of  the  character 
as  black.  "Moryen",  he  observes,  also,  means  "sea-born"  in  Welsh. 
Lot's  derivation  of  Morien  from  Mor,  who  is  a  mere  name  in  the 
Welsh  texts,  is  to  me  unconvincing. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  333 

her  infant  son,  as  intimated  at  the  beginning  of  Chretien's  poem.3* 
Even  this  brief  summary  brings  out  one  fine  feature  of  Wolfram's 
poem  —  namely,  that  he  exhibits  a  universal  tolerance.  Pagan 
and  Christian  with  him  stand  on  the  same  plane  of  nobility.  The 
fact,  indeed,  that  he  gives  his  Christian  hero  a  pagan  brother 
(Feirefiz),  is  symbolical  of  this  broad  humanity. 

For  the  next  16000  lines,  approximately,  the  poet,  in  general, 
follows  Chretien  pretty  exactly.  He  often  amplifies  his  original 
in  detail,  it  is  true,  developing  sometimes  descriptions  of  the  ex- 
ternal splendors  of  feudal  life  or  giving  a  more  individual  stamp 
to  the  characters.35  By  slight  additions,  too,  he  endeavors  to  render 
more  plausible  incidents  and  actions  and  to  weld  into  closer  unity 
all  parts  of  the  narrative.36  It  is  in  the  portion  of  his  poem,  how- 

**  Among  the  knights  whom  Gahmuret  vanquished  in  the  tourney, 
at  the  time  that  he  won  Herzeloyde,  was  Orilus's  brother,  Lahelin 
(i.  e.  Llewellyn).  He  conceived  a  great  hatred  of  Gahmuret  (79,  12 ff.) 
and  after  Gahmuret's  death  robbed  his  widow  (128,  4ff.,  141,  7ff.)  of 
two  of  her  dominions,  Wales  and  Norgales.  He  appears  also  in  one 
or  two  later  passages  of  the  poem.  Some  scholars  (cp.  Wechssler, 
p.  170)  have  seen  a  great  significance  in  the  brevity  of  the  passages 
about  this  character  in  the  Parzival:  Wolfram  must  have  been  drawing 
on  a  longer  narrative  about  him.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume 
this.  He  was  first  introduced  to  render  more  dramatic  the  scene  of 
the  tourney  and,  later,  the  isolation  of  the  widow,  but  he  was  not 
needed  in  the  part  of  the  narrative  where  Wolfram  no  longer  had  to 
rely  on  his  own  invention,  and  the  poet,  merely  in  that  part,  refers 
to  him  occasionally,  in  order  to  keep  up  the  connection  between  Book 
I — II  and  the  rest.  But  even  granting  that  what  is  said  about  Lahelin 
in  the  Parzival  came  from  a  longer  poem,  Wolfram  could  have  drawn 
on  such  a  poem  just  as  well  as  Kyot. 

There  are  also  some  transpositions,  the  most  important  of  which 
is  the  story  of  Sigune.  Here  an  episode  in  Chretien  (11.  3390 ff.)  is 
divided  into  two  parts  (138,  9ff.,  249,  11  ff.)  and  the  first  part  is 
put  much  earlier  in  the  narrative  —  just  after  the  conclusion  of  the 
episode  of  the  tent-lady  (called  Jeschute  by  Wolfram)  in  Chretien 
(1.  811).  As  Lichtenstein,  p.  15,  suggests,  Wolfram's  reason  for  the 
earlier  introduction  of  this  episode  is,  that  he  did  not  want  his  hero  to  re- 
main unnamed  any  longer,  yet,  according  to  Chretien  (11.  3535  ff.),  it  was 
in  the  dialogue  with  his  cousin  (Sigune)  that  Perceval  fust  learns  his  name. 

This  aim  probably  accounts,  in  a  large  measure,  for  the  fact 
that  all  the  characters  of  any  importance  in  the  Parzival  are  related 


334  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

ever,  in  which  the  author  expounds  his  conception  of  the  Grail 
(Books  V  and  IX)  that  the  expansion  becomes  really  considerable — 
especially,  in  the  Ninth  Book,  where  Perceval  visits  his  hermit 
uncle,  Trevrezent,  confesses  to  him  his  religious  doubts  and  other 
sins,  and  is  absolved  by  this  lay  confessor,  after  having  been  first 
enlightened  by  him  with  respect  to  the  relations  of  God  to  man 
and  the  true  nature  of  sin  as  well  (462,  11)  as  with  respect  to  the 
history  and  qualities  of  the  Grail  and  its  attendants.37  Here  some- 
thing less  than  two  hundred  lines  of  Chretien  have  been  expanded 
into  upwards  of  fifteen  hundred  by  Wolfram.  More  important 
however,  than  the  mere  fact  of  amplification  is  the  difference  of 
spirit  which  distinguishes  the  German  poet's  treatment  of  his 
theme;  for,  whereas  Chretien  moves  in  the  ordinary  grooves  of  the 
conventional  and  orthodox  theology  and  ecclesiastical  practice  of 
his  age,  Wolfram,  who  had  already  revealed  a  saner  morality  than 
the  French  poet  in  his  exaltation  of  constancy  of  character  and 
rational  chastity  and  in  his  putting  the  relations  of  his  heroes 
and  heroines  (Parzival  and  Condwiramurs,  Orilus  and  Jeschute, 
etc.)  on  the  basis  of  marriage,  deepens  immeasurably  in  this 
remarkable  episode  the  moral  import  of  the  Grail  conception,  by 
treating  it  in  a  profoundly  mystical  spirit.38   • 

and  so  constitute  one  great  family.  There  was  a  beginning  of  this 
in  Chretien's  Perceval,  but  Wolfram,  so  to  speak,  makes  it  thoroughgoing. 
The  spirit  of  universal  brotherhood  which  inspired  the  German  poet's 
conception  of  the  Elect  of  the  Grail  was,  also,  probably  a  factor. 
German  critics  have  sometimes  taken  the  matter  we  are  commenting  on 
as  especially  characteristic  of  the  Germans.  Cp.  for  example,  Lichten- 
stein,  PBB,  XXII,   69. 

87  See  for  a  comparison  of  Book  IX  with  Chretien,  A.  Nolte  "Die 
Composition  der  Trevrezentscenen",  Zs.  f.  d.  A.,  XLIV,  241  ff.  (1900). 
The  additions,  he  concludes,  are  wholly  Wolfram's,  not  Kyot's.  In 
his  "The  Ninth  Book  of  Wolfram's  Parzival",  MPh.,  I,  275ff.  (1903), 
A.  B.  Faust  has  defended  this  book  from  the  charges  of  incoherence, 
etc.  which  had  been  brought  against  it,  especially  by  G.  Botticher, 
Das  Hohelied  vom  Rittertum,  eine  Beleuchtung  des  Parzival  nach 
Wolframs  eigenen  Andeutungen  (Berlin,  1886). 

88  In  some  points,  it  is  true,  Wolfram's  changes  involve  a  loss 
as  well  as  a  gain.  For  example,  the  wound  of  the  Grail  King  of 
Chretien's  poem  (11.  3470  ff.)  is  no  longer  impressive,   when   we  learn 


Wolfram's  Parzival  335 

As  we  have  seen,  through  some  misunderstanding  of  his 
French  original,  our  author  conceives  of  the  Grail  as  a  precious 
stone  somewhat  like  the  Kaaba  at  Mecca.  It  would  seem  that  it 
had  fallen  from  the  heavens  like  the  Kaaba.  In  one  place  (471,  15) 
he  says  that  the  noble  and  worthy  among  the  angels  who  remained 
neutral  at  the  time  of  the  first  great  conflict  between  the  Trinity 
(God)  and  Lucifer  were  its  guardians.39  Afterwards,  its  defence 
was  committed  to  the  Templeise40  —  that  is  to  say,  a  company 
of  knights  whose  name  and  function  recall  the  actual  Knights 
Templars  of  the  time.  In  fact,  it  was  obviously  the  order  of 
Knights  Templars  that  suggested  to  Wolfram  the  brotherhood  of 
the  Grail,  just  as  it  suggested  to  his  contemporary,41  the  author 
of  the  famous  French  prose  romance,  the  Queste  del  Saint  Graal, 
the  character  of  Galahad.  The  crusades,  both  in  practical  life  and 
in  literature,  had  brought  about  the  union  of  the  two  great  ideals 
that  distinguish  the  Middle  Ages  —  the  ideal  of  chivalry  and  the 
ideal  of  the  Christian  Church  —  but  in  the  French  romance  the 
ideal  of  chivalry,  in  a  spirit  of  the  narrowest  asceticism,  is  com- 
pletely subordinated  to  that  of  the  Church,  whilst  in  the  German 
poem,  with  a  sane  recognition  of  their  respective  values,  the  two 
are  combined  in  perfect  harmony. 

from  Wolfram  (479,  2ff.j  that  it  was  received  in  the  pursuit  of  the 
usual  adventures  of  a  knight-errant,  who  was  endeavoring  to  win  the 
favor  of  his  lady  by  prowess.  To  be  sure,  Wolfram  explains  the  mis- 
fortune as  a  punishment  for  Amfortas's  pride  and  unchastity,  as  dis- 
played in  this  pursuit.  Similarly,  according  to  Wolfram  (501,  25), 
the  mysterious  illness  of  the  Grail  King's  grandfather  (cp.  Chretien, 
11.  6391  ff.)  is  the  gout. 

39  Later  (798,   llff.)  he  retracts  this. 

40  From  Latin  Templenses.  Singer  objects,  pp.  93  ff.,  that  a 
German  would  have  used  a  German  term  (templaere  or  another),  in- 
stead of  this  French  form,  for  the  Knights  Templars.  But  it  did  not 
require  any  great  knowledge  of  French  to  invent  the  word,  templeis, 
even  if  our  author  did  not  actually  pick  it  up  from  some  French 
source.  He  might  prefer  it  to  the  ordinary  German  terms,  because 
he  did  not  want  to  identify  too  absolutely  his  ideal  order  with  the 
contemporary  order  that  suggested  it. 

The  Queste,  too,  was,  apparently,  written  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  thirteenth  century. 


336  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

The  Grail,  then,  which  is  entrusted  to  the  keeping  of  this 
new  order  of  spiritual  knighthood  is  a  symbol  of  redemption  and 
of  eternal  life.  It  renders  immortal  and  ever-youthful  those  that 
dwell  near  it  and  look  upon  it.  The  place  where  it  is  preserved 
is  called  Munsalvaesche  (doubtless,  Mont  Salvage) 42  and  its  guar- 
dians prevent  any  one  from  approaching  the  mystic  castle,  save 
those  that  are  called  to  its  service.  These  chosen  servants,  who 
are  of  both  sexes,  are  summoned  in  their  youth  from  all  lands  and 
from  the  ranks  of  the  poor  and  the  rich  alike.  They  must  renounce 
profane  love  (minne),  yet  marriage  is  not  forbidden  them,  since 
their  children  are  to  be  dedicated  to  the  same  holy  service  as 
themselves.  Among  the  men,  however,  this  privilege  is  restricted 
to  the  Grail  King  and  to  those  who  (like  Lohengrin)  are  sent  forth 


48  It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  name  which  Wolfram  gives  to  the 
Grail  castle  is  simply  the  French  equivalent  of  the  name  of  his  own 
home,  Wildenberc  (Cp.  Parzival,  230,  12f.).  This  can  hardly  be 
an  accident.  In  PfcB,  XXIV,  409  (1899),  A.  Gebhardt  regards  Wil- 
denberc as  a  jesting  translation  of  Munsalvaesche;  but  this  is  ex- 
tremely improbable.  The  passage  concerning  Wildenberc  occurs  before 
Munsalvaesche  has  been  named  (251,  2),  and  the  joke  would,  accor- 
dingly, have  been  lost  on  the  reader.  On  the  other  hand,  I  believe 
with  Golther,  Zur  deutschen  Sage  und  Dichtung,  p.  161,  that  Wolf- 
ram humorously  named  his  Grail  castle  after  his  own  home.  In  that 
event,  there  would  be  no  need  of  considering  —  with  Foerster,  Chretien 
Worterbuch,  p.  201*,  —  the  possible  influence  of  Montserrat  on  the 
name  of  Wolfram's  Grail  castle. 

It  has  been  also  suggested  that  Munsalvaesche  is  derived  from 
Montem  Salvationis,  but  this  derivation  is  not  phonologically  unob- 
jectionable, like  the  derivation  which  I  have  given  above  and  which 
is  now  generally  accepted  —  except  by  Singer,  p.  90,  who  believes 
that  Wolfram's  French  source  had  here  Mont  Salvation. 

Wildenberc,  Wolfram's  home,  is  usually  identified  with  modern 
Wehlenberg  (formerly  named  Wildenbergen)  near  Ansbach.  In  his 
review  of  Panzer's  Wolfram  bibliography,  Anzeiger  fur  deutsches  Alter- 
turn,  XXIV,  316ff.,  E.  Schroder,  however,  has  proposed,  instead  of 
Wehlenberg,  Wildenberg  on  the  eastern  edge  of  the  Odenwald.  The 
older  identification,  nevertheless,  is  probably  correct.  Cp.,  especially, 
Johann  Baptist  Kurz,  Heimat  und  Geschlecht  Wolframs  von  Eschen- 
bach  (Ansbach,  1916). 


Wolfram's  Parzival  337 

to  take  charge  of  lands  without  a  lord.43  The  Grail  community, 
furthermore,  has  no  concern  in  regard  to  subsistence,  for  on  Good 
Friday  a  dove  descends  from  the  heavens  and  lays  a  sacred  wafer 
on  the  stone,  which  is  thereby  endowed  with  the  power  to  supply 
its  votaries  with  food  and  drink. 

Thus  the  Grail  King,  it  will  be  seen,  is  the  sovereign  of 
a  spiritual  realm  which  is  coextensive  with  mankind.  His  office, 
indeed,  is  more  exalted  even  than  that  of  the  Pope,  for  its  authority, 
resting  wholly  on  a  basis  of  spiritual  and  moral  aspiration,  is 
untrammelled  by  dogma  and  unsullied  by  worldly  interests.  If 
this  was  to  be  the  ultimate  development  of  the  Grail  legend,  no 
wonder  that  the  mediaeval  Church  was  chary  of  lending  it  coun- 
tenance! 

It  is  to  this  unparalleled  dignity  that  Perceval  is  appointed, 
after  expiating  his  sins  through  humility  and  human  sympathy. 
As  has  been  remarked  by  more  than  one  scholar,  the  depth  of 
Wolfram's  conception  in  all  this  comes  out  plainly,  if  we  contrast 
him  with  his  contemporary,  Hartmann  von  Aue.  For  the  latter 
(compare  his  Gregorius)  the  only  unpardonable  sin  is  religious 
doubt.  For  Wolfram  it  is  inconstancy  of  character,  the  want  of 
a  fixed  purpose.  To  obtain  salvation,  then,  one  must  be  constant 
and  loyal.  Wolfram's  hero  shows  these  qualities  in  his  relations 
to  his  wife  and  in  his  relations  to  the  Grail.44  We  have  in  the 
poem  the  story  of  his  sin  and  of  his  purification.45  The  poet's 
treatment  of  Perceval's  failure  to  ask  the  fateful  question  at  the 
Grail  castle  is  particularly  noteworthy.  In  Chretien  this  failure 
has  no  moral  significance  —  the  whole  incident  is  simply  one  of 
a  fairy-tale  spell  which  the  question  will  undo.  But  with  Wolfram 
it  is  otherwise.    It  betrays  a  want  of  sympathy  with  his  fellow- 

48  Moreover,  the  marriage  of  the  men  had  to  be  secret,  whilst 
that  of  the  women  was  public  (494,   13  ft.). 

44  It  is  significant  that  Wolfram  always  makes  his  hero  speak 
of  them  (wife  and  Grail)  together,  as  determining  the  aims  of  his  life. 

45  Noteworthy  is  Wolfram's  independence  of  contemporary  ideas 
as  to  how  one  should  attain  grace  —  that  is  to  say,  through  penance, 
intercession  of  the  Virgin  Mary  or  the  saints  etc.  There  is  not  a 
trace  of  Mariolatry  in  his  work. 


338  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

man  (255,  17;  484,  24),  when  Perceval  omits  to  ask  the  question, 
and  therein  he  has  sinned.  It  is  true  that  he  is  restrained  by  the 
injunctions  of  Gornemanz,  but  those  injunctions  were  merely  the 
formulas  of  a  conventional  etiquette,  and  etiquette  has  in  the  crisis 
proved  stronger  with  the  hero  than  compassion.  He  only  frees 
himself  from  sin  later  on,  when  by  asking  the  neglected  question, 
he  exhibits  the  sympathy  which  he  had  failed  in  before. 

So,  too,  with  the  contrast  of  Perceval  and  Gawain  as  types, 
respectively,  of  the  knight  who  pursues  the  ideal  and  the  knight 
who  is  merely  the  perfect  embodiment  of  conventional  courtesy 
and  wordly  accomplishments.  The  antithesis  is  already  found  in 
Chretien,  but  the  French  poet  is  purely  a  courtier  and  a  man  of 
the  world,  with  a  gift  for  depicting  the  externals  of  life  —  light, 
graceful,  and  endlessly  fluent  —  whereas  Wolfram  has  profound 
emotion  and  an  original  ideal  which  he  wishes  to  express  through 
his  work. 

So  far  for  the  portion  of  his  narrative  which  Wolfram  borrow- 
ed from  Chretien.  It  only  remains  to  outline  briefly  the  con- 
clusion which  he  added  to  Chretien's  unfinished  poem:  The  French 
poem  had  ended  at  the  point  where  Arthur's  mother  and  the  other 
queens  appear  imprisoned  in  a  magic  castle.46  The  lord  of  this 
castle  is  called  Clinschor  by  Wolfram,  and  he  is  said  to  be  the 
nephew  of  Virgil,  who,  as  is  well-known,  was  regarded  in  the 
Middle  Ages  as  an  incomparable  magician.  Gawain  overcomes 
the  magician  and  releases  the  captives  —  later  he  has  a  fight 
with  Perceval,  neither  being  aware  of  the  other's  identity.  After 
many  minor  adventures  Perceval  meets  his  half-brother,  the  heathen 
Feirefiz,  and  sustains  with  him  the  hardest  of  all  his  fights. 
They  recognize  each  other,  however,  embrace,  and  repair  to  Ar- 
thur's court.  Cundrie,  a  Grail  damsel,  learned  in  starlore,  comes 
and  tells  Perceval  that  his  wife  and  twin  sons,  Lohengrin  and 
Kardeiz,  have  been  summoned  to  the  Grail  castle  and  that  the 
question  will  now  free  Amfortas  and  his  land.  With  Cundrie 
and  Feirefiz  Perceval  rides  to  the  Grail  castle,  meets  his  wife, 


48  Owing  to   the   fact  that  Chretien   had   left   this    episode   tin- 
finished,  Wolfram  has  remodeled  it  with  great  freedom. 


Wolfram's  Parzival  339 

and  together  they  all  behold  the  talismans,  save  Feirefiz,  to  whom 
as  a  heathen  the  sight  of  the  Grail  is  denied.  But  soon,  under 
the  influence  of  the  charms  of  the  Grail  damsel  —  as  Wolfram 
intimates,  with  some  happy  strokes  of  humor  —  rather  than  from 
religious  conviction,  Feirefiz  becomes  a  convert  to  Christianity, 
is  baptized,  and  weds  the  damsel  (Repanse  de  Schoie);  the  two 
then  go  to  India,  and  from  them  is  born  Prester  John.  On  the 
other  hand,  Perceval  rules  henceforth  over  his  Grail  kingdom. 
Lastly,  it  is  told  of  his  (Perceval's)  son,  Lohengrin,47  how  he  was 
led  to  the  aid  of  the  Duchess  of  Brabant  by  a  swan,  how  he  marries 
her  on  condition  that  she  shall  not  inquire  as  to  his  origin  and  how 
on  her  breaking  his  command  the  swan  carries  him  away  from 
her.  —  This  introduction  of  the  Swan-Knight  into  the  Grail  story 
was,  of  course,  an  innovation  of  Wolfram's,  for  the  two  legends 
had  so  far  developed  separately.  So,  too,  with  the  idea  that  the 
lord  of  the  magic  castle  where  the  queens  were  held  in  duress  was 
a  nephew  of  Virgil.  Virgil  —  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of 
Prester  John  —  had  been  well-known  figures  in  mediaeval  legend, 
before  Wolfram  composed  his  poem,  but  they  had  had  no  con- 
nection with  the  Holy  Grail. 

The  conclusion  just  outlined  calls  for  no  particular  remark. 
Like  the  corresponding  prologue,  it  is,  in  the  judgment  of  the 
present  writer,  plainly  the  invention  of  Wolfram.48 

47  Probably  =  Loherenc  Garin,  that  is,  Garin  of  Lorraine,  with 
reference  to  Garin,  a  well-known  character  in  the  Old  French  chan- 
sons de  geste.  The  Swan-Knight  story  had  already  been  connected 
with  the  House  of  Lorraine.  ^For  its  influence  on  an  episode  in  Pseudo- 
Wauchier,  cp.  p.  300,  above.  That  episode,  however,  is  not  directly 
connected  with  the  Grail,  so  that  the  assertion  which  I  make  in  the 
next  sentence  above  is  valid. 

*8  In  his  "Parzivalstudien",  Germania,  XXXVH,  74  ff.  (1892), 
P.  Hagen  studies  the  relations  of  Chretien,  Wolfram,  and  Peredur, 
and  finds  in  certain  supposed  agreements  between  the  last  two,  as 
against  the  first,  proof  that  they  are  independent  of  Chretien.  Peredur, 
however,  is  certainly  derived  directly  from  Chretien.  On  this  subject 
scholars  of  virtually  every  school  are  nowadays  agreed.  Cp.  p.  344 
note  3,  below. 

R.  H.  Griffith  has  made  the  same  sort  of  comparison  as  Hagen, 
but  on  a  more  elaborate  scale,  in  his  Sir  Perceval  of  Galles  (Chicago, 


340  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 


1911),  laying  especial  stress  on  agreements  with  the  English  Sir  Per- 
cevaL  But  on  the  subject  of  such  supposed  agreements  cp.  my  review 
of  Griffith's  book  in  the  Romanic  Review,  IV,  125ff.  (1913).  What 
I  have  said  there  applies,  in  general,  also,  to  similar  comparisons  in 
Carsten  Struck's  Minister  dissertation,  Der  junge  Parzival  in  Wolf- 
rams von  Eschenbach  Parzival,  etc.  CBoma-Leipzig,  1910)  and 
A.  C.  L.  Brown's  "The  Grail  and  the  English  Sir  Perceval",  MPh., 
XVI,  553  ff.  (1919).  Brown  stresses,  as  the  most  important,  five 
points  of  agreement  i^so  he  considers  them)  between  Wolfram  and  the 
English  poem,  as  against  Chretien,  viz.:  In  both  1.  Perceval  meets 
three  knights  in  the  "forest  in  the  opening  episode  of  the  story,  not 
five,  as  in  Chretien  2.  had  a  bad  mount  3.  lives  near  "a  natural 
source  of  water",  —  i.  e.,  according  to  the  English  poem  "He  dranke 
water  of  the  welle";  according  to  Wolfram,  bathed  every  morning 
in  a  river  nearby,  4.  is  connected  with  a  vengeance  motif,  5.  his 
father  in  his  marriage  tournament  "made  an  enemy",  who  is  later  to 
do  battle  against  the  son. 

Now  as  regards  these  five  points:  No.  1  is  not  accurately  statedr 
for    in  Wolfram    there  are   really   four   knights.      First   three   knights 
appear,  and  then,  immediately  afterwards,  a  fourth  knight,  who  is  lord 
of  the  rest.    Besides,  only  the  last  of  these  in  Wolfram  has  a  name, 
viz.    Karnahkarnanz,    whereas   in  the  English   poem  the  three  knights 
are  Yvain,  Gawain  and  Kay.  —  No.  2.  The  idea  that  the  young  rustic's 
mount  should  be  more  or  less  ridiculous  springs   naturally  out  of  the 
situation.     Otherwise,  there  is   no  similarity  between   the  two  poems. 
In  Wolfram  Perceval's  mother,   when  he  first  leaves  home,  purposely 
gives  him  a  poor  horse,  to  protect  his  life,   since,  if  so  mounted,  the 
knights  would  not  take  him  seriously.    Nothing  is  said  of  this  in  the 
English  poem  in  the  only  passage  where  the  matter  is  mentioned  (one 
much  later  in  the  narrative,  viz.  at  the  point  where  Perceval  has  just 
slain    the   Red   Knight).      There    (11.   718  ff.)  it   is    stated,    merely   in 
passing,    that   Perceval   was    riding  a  mare    that   was    with  foal.    — 
No.  3.  Here,  on  the  face  of  it,  there  is  obviously  no  real  resemblance 
between  the  two.      Besides,  "He  dranke  water  of  the  welle  And  yitt 
was  he  wyghte,"  (11.  6f.)  is  introduced  to  emphasize  the  hero's  sober 
bringing  up,  with  which,  of  course,  Wolfram's  river  has  nothing  to  do. 
—   No.  4.  In  the  English   poem   the   revenge  motif  (taken,  doubtless, 
from  the  spurious  Bliocadrans  prologue  to  Chretien)  is  one  of  the  most 
important  motifs   of   the   romance   and   justifies  Perceval's    enmity   to 
the  Red  Knight.     In  so  far  as  there  is  any  revenge  motif  at   all  in 
Wolfram,,  the  object  of  it  is  L&helin,  who  does  not  correspond  to  the 
Red  Knight,  in  any  way.     Moreover,   in  Wolfram   the  matter  has  no 


Wolfram's  Parzival  341 


importance.  I  called  attention  to  these  differences  in  Romanic  Review, 
IV,  127,  note  6  (1913).  —  No.  5.  In  Wolfram  (unlike  Sir  Perceval) 
the  knight  overthrown  (not  killed)  in  the  later  encounter  (Orilus)  is 
not  identical  with  the  knight  who  was  overthrown  in  the  first  encounter 
(Lahelin).  One  would  have  to  read,  however,  the  long  and  altogether 
different  narrative  in  Wolfram  to  see  how  ill-supported  this  last  point  is. 


Chapter  VII. 
Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sone  de  Nausay. 

Different  views  have  been  expressed  in  regard  to  the  relations 
of  the  French  Conte  del  Graal  (Chretien's  Perceval  plus  its  con- 
tinuations) and  the  Welsh  tale,  called  Peredur,  which  is  contained 
in  the  collection  of  Welsh  tales,  known  generally  as  the  Mabino- 
gion.1   This  tale  has  been  frequently  taken  by  advocates  of  Celtic 


1  The  best  discussions  of  this  question  are  by  1.  W.  Golther, 
"Chrestiens  Conte  del  Graal  in  seinem  Verhaltniss  zum  w&lschen 
Peredur  und  zum  englischen  Sir  Perceval,"  Sitzungsberichte  der  phi- 
losophisch-philologischen  und  historischen  Classe  der  K.  b.  Akademie 
der  Wissenschaften  zu  Munchen,  1890,  Band  I,  Heft  I,  pp.  174ff., 
and,  2.  R.  Thurneysen,  in  his  review  of  Miss  Williams's  Peredur  essay 
in  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Celtische  Philologie,  VIII,  185  ff.  (1912). 
Thurneysen 's  discussion  of  the  evolution  of  the  Welsh  tale  is  con- 
vincing. As  he  points  out,  Miss  Williams,  like  previous  scholars,  fails 
to  observe  that  the  Red  Book  of  Hergest  indicates  that  the  Peredur 
really  consists  of  three  separate  stories,  each  beginning  on  a  new  page 
and  with  large  initial  letters.  To  be  sure,  on  other  grounds,  Miss 
Williams  recognized  the  third  of  these  stories  as  a  later  addition  to 
the  original  text,  but,  according  to  Thurneysen,  so  is  the  second  (II). 
Still  further,  the  first  of  the  stories,  which  ends  at  the  point  where 
Peredur  is  reconciled  to  Angharat  Law  Eurawc,  is  itself  composite, 
and  consists  of  two  parts  designated  by  Thurneysen,  la  (ending  at  the 
point  where,  after  the  incident  of  the  drops  of  the  blood  in  the  snow, 
Peredur  is  found  by  Arthur's  knights)  and  lb.  This  la  is  a  free  para- 
phrase of  the  corresponding  portion  of  Chretien,  with  little  admixture 
of  native  Welsh  materials.  On  the  other  hand,  lb  and  II  are  free 
inventions  of  Welsh  story-tellers,  independent  of  each  other,  but  both 
writing  under  the  influence  of  la,  which  first  introduced  Peredur  as 
a  knight  errant  into  Welsh  literature.  The  author  of  Part  III  follows 
Chretien,  as  far  as  his  fragmentary  narrative  permitted,  but  adds  to 
it  from  some  other  non- Welsh  source,  terminating  the  whole  with  his 


Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sone  de  Nausay  343 

origins  for  the  French  romances  as  evidence  of  the  existence  in 
Wales  of  a  Perceval  legend  embodying  incidents  that  gave  rise 
to  the  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail.  Few,  however,  latterly  have  denied 
that  it  had  some  sort  of  connection  with  the  French  romances. 
Nutt2  speaks  of  it  as  "exhibiting  .  .  .  what  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
oldest  form  of  a  sequence  of  incidents  found  in  the  most  diverse 
shapes  in  the  French  Grail  romances.  It  is  practically  a  Grail 
Quest  before  the  introduction  of  Christian  symbolism  has  trans- 
formed both  the  Grail  itself  and  the  Quest  for  it."  In  his  Studies 
on  the  Holy  Grail  (p.  145)  he  thinks  that  the  extant  Peredur 
must  be  an  amplification  of  an  earlier  Welsh  tale,  and  that  the 
author  of  the  story  in  its  revised  form  was  strongly  influenced 
by  Chretien  and  drew  upon  him  also  for  materials.  In  a  special 
thesis  on  the  subject,  Essai  sur  la  composition  du  roman  gallois  de 
Peredur  (Paris,  1909),  Miss  Mary  R.  Williams  maintains  that 
only  the  final  section  (third,  according  to  her  division)  is  copied 
from  the  French  (not  Chretien)  —  the  section  which  begins  with 
Peredur's  return  to  Caerleon  after  his  visit  to  the  Grail  castle 
(pp.  13f.),  —  although  there  was  also  a  French  poem  correspond- 
ing to  Section  I.  J.  Loth,  Les  Mabinogion,  I,  53  (Paris,  1913), 
accepts  Peredur,  like  The  Lady  of  the"  Fountain  and  Geraint  the 


own  inventions,  but  on  the  basis  of  suggestions,  which  he  found  in  la. 
This  Part  III,  as  said  above,  begins  with  Peredur's  return  to  Caerleon 
after  his  visit  to  the  Grail  castle. 

*  The  Mabinogion,  p.  354  (New  York,  1902). 

In  his  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend,  Ch.  4 — 6,  J.  Rhys 
discusses  Peredur  in  Welsh  literature,  and  tries  to  connect  him  with 
the  stories  of  Yvain  and  Lancelot,  but,  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has 
convinced  no  one.  —  To  prove  that  Peredur  was  "early  known"  as 
a  Grail  hero  in  Wales,  Evans  cites  the  Black  Book  of  Caermarthen, 
65,  7  —  9  (of  the  twelfth  century,  it  seems),  where  we  have  Peredur 
called  penwelic.  He  interprets  this  as  pen-vedig  =  chief  physician 
i.  e.  who  healed  the  Grail  king,  and  remarks:  "Thus  an  independent 
source  of  genuine  antiquity  reveals  Peredur  to  us  as  the  Welsh  hero 
of  the  Grail  quest."  Cp.  The  White  Book  Mabinogion,  Welsh  Tales 
Romances  reproduced  from  the  Peniarth  Manuscripts,  edited  by 
J.  Gwenogvryn  Evans,  p.  14  (Pwllheli,  1907  —  really  issued,  how- 
ever, in  1909,  it  appears,  since  the  Preface  is  dated  in  the  latter  year). 


344  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Son  of  Erbm,  as  derived  from  the  French  —  strange  to  say,  how- 
ever, not  from  Chretien,  but  from  hypothetical  Anglo-Norman  poems 
(now  lost)  which  dealt  with  subjects  of  Welsh  origin.  In  this  he  is  fol- 
lowing Gaston  Paris.  E.  Windisch  alone,  DasKeltischeBritannien  bis 
zu  Kaiser  Arthur,  p. 221  (Leipzig,  1912),  appears  to  deny  altogether 
any  connection  with  the  French.  —  But  one  is  tempted  to  say,  how- 
ever, that  only  the  obsession  of  Celtic  origins  could  lead  one  to 
deny  the  derivation  of  Peredur  from  Chretien.3  The  oldest  MS. 
of  the  Welsh  tale  (fragmentary)  dates  from  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury (cp.  Loth2  I,  18)  and  the  tale  itself  certainly  dates  from 
a  period  when  the  French  romances  had  already  developed  — 
that  is,  not  earlier  than  the  latter  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  or, 
more  probably,  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth.  Welsh  scholars 
have  cited  no  evidence  that  would  place  them  so  early.  The 
author  shows  no  knowledge  of  anything  concerning  the  Perceval 
legend  which  is  not  in  Chretien.  His  account  of  Perceval  ends 
where  Chretien  ends. 

The  construction  of  the  tale  bears  testimony  to  its  French 
origin.  As  compared  with  the  Welsh  tales  of  the  native  tradition, 
such  as  Kulhweh  and  Olwen,  Peredur  and  its  companions,  Owein 
(The  Lady  of  the  Fountain)  and  Geramt,  Son  of  Erbin*  ex- 


8  Although  an  advocate  of  the  Celtic  origin  of  the  Grail  legend 
Brugger  regards  the  Peredur  as  a  mere  derivative  of  Chretien  and 
his  continuators.  Cp.  his  review  of  Miss  Williams's  thesis,  Herrig's 
Archiv,  CXXV,  450ff.  (1910).  So,  too,  W.  A.  Nitze,  Modern  Lan- 
guage Notes,  XXV,  246ff.  (1910)  and  W.  Golther,  Literaturblatt  filr 
germanische  und  romanische  Philologie,  XXXI,  286  f.  (1910)  in  their 
reviews  of  the  same  thesis.  G.  Paris,  on  the  other  hand,  had  ad- 
vocated the  certainly  erroneous  view  that  a  lost  Anglo-Norman  poem 
was  the  common  source  of  Peredur  and  Chretien's  Perceval.  Cp. 
p.  99  of  his  Perceval  et  la  legende  du  Saint  Gral:  Societe  Historique 
et  Cercle  Saint-Simon,  Bulletin  no.  2  (Paris,  1883).  He  says,  ibid. 
p.  98,  that  the  Perceval  story  is  Welsh  in  origin,  and  regards  the 
Middle  English  Sir  Perceval  as  preserving  it  in  its  most  authentic  form. 
J.  Gwenogvryn  Evans  remarks  that  Peredur  is  more  Welsh 
than  the  last  two  and  "less  influenced  by  the  prevailing  tone  of  the 
Romances  of  chivalry."     See  his  The  White  Book  Mabinogion,  etc. 


Peredur,  Diu  Crdne,  and  Sone  de  Nausay  345 

hibit,  as  has  already  been  said,  a  different  art.  We  have  here, 
it  is  true,  as  in  the  mediaeval  romances,  generally,  not  a  logi- 
cally developed  plot,  but  a  series  of  episodes  with  hardly  any 
thread  of  connection,  save  that  the  same  character  is  the  hero  of 
each  of  the  episodes.  Nevertheless,  the  individual  episodes  are  in 
themselves  coherent,  whereas  in  the  native  Welsh  tales  there  is  no 
coherence,  and  the  fantastic  narrative  (with  a  multitude  of  beau- 
tiful details,  to  be  sure),  like  a  wild  vine,  strikes  out  in  any 
direction  it  pleases.  The  structure  of  Peredur  is,  then,  essentially 
the  structure  of  Perceval.  Indeed,  the  actual  order  of  the  in- 
cidents through  the  two  works  is  the  same  —  only  that  the  hero's 
visit  to  Blanchefleur,  owing,  perhaps,  to  some  disarrangement  of 
leaves  in  the  French  MS.  which  the  Welshman  had  before  him, 
has  been  put  later,  and  hence  has  produced  an  obvious  confusion 
in  the  Welsh  narrative.  In  parts  there  is,  indeed,  for  a  long  stretch 
of  narrative  a  verbal  correspondence  between  the  Welsh  and  the 
French,  as  in  the  passage  which  follows  on  the  incident  of  Perce- 
val's unhorsing  Kay  (Chretien,  11.  5698  ff.).  Elsewhere  there  are 
manifest  errors,  which  are  due  to  the  fact  that  the  Welshman 
has  misunderstood  his  original.  For  example,  Perceval's  excla- 
mation on  first  seeing  knights:  "They  are  angels,"  is  transferred 
to  his  mother,  in  whose  mouth  they  have  no  sense.  Two  nuns 
appear  strangely  as  waitresses  in  Blanchefleur' s  castle,  probably 
because,  on  approaching  this  castle,  Perceval  is  said  by  Chretien 
to  have  seen  "II  Abeies".5  —  On  the  other  hand,  the  Welsh 
has  some  merits  of  style  which  are  wanting  in  the  Freuch.  As 
Nutt  has  remarked,6  the  narrative  in  the  former  is  "direct  and 
vivid,  bathed  in  colour,  bringing  into  high  relief  with  an  artistic 
instinct  almost  uncanny  in  its  Tightness  those  traits  and  features, 
which  produce  a  picturesque,  a  romantic  effect." 


pp.  XIII,  XXIV.  This  is  true,  but  is  explained  by  the  composite 
character  of  the  work.  Cp.  p.  342,  note  1,  above.  Evans  believes 
that  Peredur  had  undergone  repeated  redaction  before  the  days  of 
Chretien    and  that  it  is  older  than  Owein  and  GereinL 

6  Cp.  Nutt,  Studies,  p.  135. 

6  Mabinogion,  p.  352. 


346  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Apart  from  the  confusions,  just  noted,  the  main  differences 
which  distinguish  Peredur  are  as  follows:  1.  Gawain's  adventures 
are  greatly  abbreviated;  2.  Descriptions  pertaining  to  the  life  of 
chivalry  are  largely  left  out;  3.  The  Grail,  as  such,  does  not  appear 
in  the  Welsh  tale.  Instead  of  the  sacred  vessel,  we  have  simply 
a  dish  with  a  bleeding  head  on  it.  This  is  a  talisman  intended  to 
incite  the  hero  to  avenge  the  death  of  the  cousin,  whose  head  is 
on  the  dish,  and  the  harming  of  ain  uncle.  The  cause  of  this 
difference  is  that  the  Welsh  author  could  make  nothing  out  of 
the  mysterious  Grail  in  Chretien's  unfinished  poem,  so  that  he 
substituted  the  motif  of  vengeance  which  he  found  in  Manessier's 
continuation  and  which  was  familiar  to  him  already.  Even  the 
idea  of  curing  the  Fisher  King  by  the  execution  of  vengeance, 
employed  by  Manessier,  would  be  well-known  to  him,  for  this  is 
found  among  the  Celts,  and  in  Old  Irish  the  same  word  meant 
to  "pay"  and  to  "cure".7  All  that  the  Welsh  author  did  then 
was  to  put  on  the  dish,  instead  of  the  wafer,  the  head  of  Manessier's 
Goon  Desert,  which  here  serves  as  a  warning,  not  a  token  of 
victory.  As  an  illustration  of  how  impossible  it  was  for  foreign 
translators  of  Chretien  to  fathom  the  meaning  of  the  Grail, 
Golther8  has  cited  the  Norwegian  translator,  who  betrays  his  des- 
pair by  offering  the  reader  a  choice  of  translations  of  the  word 
Grail,  all  equally  nonsensical.  This  translator  queries  whether  the 
term  means  web  or  progressive  alleviation  or  assistance!  The 
Welshman  did  better,  inasmuch  as  he  adopted  from  Manessier 
something  that  he  could  understand.  4.  The  Welsh  author  has 
introduced  into  the  story  some  motifs  drawn  from  native  Welsh 
folk-tales.  The  principal  instances  are  in  the  Witches  of  Glou- 
cester episode.  Peredur  subdues  one  of  these  witches,  who  had 
been  troubling  a  noble  lady,  and  afterwards  at  the  court  of  the 
witches  he  learns  the  arts  of  chivalry.  By  the  aid  of  a  precious 
stone  that  renders  the  bearer  invisible  the  hero  slays  a  great  serpent 
that  dwells  in  a  lake  and  ravages  the  surrounding  country.  5.  He 
has  substituted  for  the  French  name,  Perceval,  the  familiar  Welsh 


Cp.  J.  Loth,  Mabinogion*,  I,  63,  note. 
Cp.  op.  cit.}  p.  194. 


Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sons  de  Nausay  347 

name,  Peredur.  The  Welsh  tale,  then,  is  substantially  merely  an 
adaptation  of  Chretien  with  some  use  of  Wauchier  and  Manessier 
and  probably  the  Bliocadrans-prologue.9  Like  the  mediaeval  trans- 
lators, generally,  the  author  does  not  usually  follow  his  original 
verbatim,  but  paraphrases  and  shortens  at  will,  and,  most  im- 
portant of  all,  gives  the  style  the  colouring  of  the  native  tales. 
As  we  have  seen,  he  has  also  made  some  additions,  but  these  are 
not  numerous.  There  is  no  need,  then,  of  assuming  the  very  im- 
probable sequence:  1.  a  Welsh  tale  about  Perceval.  2.  a  French 
version  of  this  tale.  3.  Chretien's  Perceval,  based  on  the  French 
version.  4.  the  extant  Welsh  Peredur,  which  is  a  modification 
of  (1)  under  the  influence  of  (2)  or  (3).  Instead  of  this  com- 
plicated scheme,  we  simply  have  1.  Chretien  -f-  his  continuators. 
2.  the  extant  Peredur  based  on  the  same. 

Besides  the  three  works  which  I  have  just  considered  and  which 
have  loomed  so  large  in  Grail  discussions,  there  are  two  others  which 
are  of  less  importance,  but  which  should  not  be  passed  over  entirely 
in  silence  in  a  survey  of  the  development  of  the  legend  of  the 
Holy  Grail.    They  are  as  follows: 

1.  Diu  Crone  (Krone).10  Gawain  is  the  hero  of  this  German 
poem  of  30,041  lines,  which  was  written  about  1220  by  Heinrich 
von  dem  Turlin,  probably  of  Steiermark.  In  the  genre  to  which 
it  belongs  it  has  few  rivals  in  respect  to  the  number  and  extra- 
vagance of  the  adventures  that  it  offers.  We  find  here  specimens 
of  almost  every  fantastic  object  that  went  to  make  up  the  trea- 
sure of  mediaeval  romance  —  drinking  cups  that  test  the  chastity 
of  knights  and  ladies,  magic  girdles  that  render  the  wearer  in- 
visible, images,  the  sight  of  which  induce  an  irresistible  sleep, 
etc.  —  and,  of  course,  the  incidents  that  are  necessary  to  demon- 
strate the  power  of   these  objects.    The  final  adventure  of  the 

9  Cp.  Golther,  pp.  197f. 

10  Edited  by  G.  H.  F.  Scholl  as  vol.  27  in  the  Bibliothek  des 
Litterarischen  Vereins  in  Stuttgart  (Stuttgart,  1852).  Miss  Weston 
has  translated  the  Grail  episode  in  her  Sir  Gawain  at  the  Grail 
Castle,  83  ff.  (London,  1903).  Gawain  reaches  the  Grail  castle  at 
1.  29  153  of  the  original  poem. 


348  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

romance  is  Gawain's  visit  to  the  Grail  castle,  on  which  occasion 
he  is  accompanied  by  Lancelot  and  Calogreant.  When  the  knights 
arrive,  they  find  in  the  hall  of  the  Grail  castle  simply  a  cheerful, 
pleasant  scene,  such  as  might  have  been  witnessed  almost  daily 
in  a  castle  of  the  time  —  twio  youths  of  noble  birth  playing 
chess  and  jesting,  as  they  play,  whilst  the  Grail  lord,  who,  as  in 
the  continuators  of  Chretien  (except  Manessier),  is  not  lame,  looks 
on  at  the  game.  So,  too,  with  the  feast  in  the  evening,  in  des- 
cribing which  the  author  emphasizes  the  splendor  of  the  service, 
and  the  courtesy  of  the  host,  and  the  minstrels'  music.  Before 
the  Grail  procession  enters,  a  fair  youth  brings  in  a  sword  which 
we  recognize  as  the  sword  that  was  destined  for  the  Grail  knight 
in  previous  Grail  romances.  As  in  the  corresponding  scene  in 
Chretien,  however,  here  it  is  not  broken.  Heeding  the  admonition 
which  he  had  received  from  a  goddess  beforehand,  Gawain  refrains 
from  drinking  at  the  feast,  but  his  companions  succumb  to  thirst, 
fall  into  a  deep  slumber,11  and  so  do  not  share  in  Gawain's  sight 
of  the  Grail  procession.  The  most  distinctive  feature  of  the  Grail 
procession  in  Diu  Crone  is  that  the  Grail  is  brought  in  by  a 
crowned  damsel  (the  fairest  that  God  had  ever  created),  on  a 
cloth  of  samite  and  resting  on  a  jewel  as  its  base,  being,  itself, 
like  a  reliquary  on  an  altar,  and  that  the  spear  dripped  three 
drops  of  blood  into  a  salver  which  the  host  at  once  took.12  Gawain 


11  This  inopportune  slumber  was  doubtless  suggested  by  Pseudo- 
Wauchier,  11.  20299 ff.,  where  Gawain  is  the  victim.  From  the  same 
passage,  probably,  are  derived  (1)  the  conception  of  the  Grail  lord 
as  not  lame,  (2)  the  rather  artless  idea  that  Gawain  is  warned  be- 
forehand that  he  must  ask  the  question. 

12  The  Christian  symbolism  of  this  is  obvious,  and  shows  that 
the  author  recognizes  the  whole  Grail  conception  as  Christian.  The 
King  says  that  only  he  is  nourished  by  the  blood.  This,  however, 
is  the  German  poet's  own  innovation. 

Miss  Weston,  op.  cit.,  p.  82,  speaks  of  the  role  of  the  weeping 
maidens  in  the  Grail  procession  as  being  "never  clear."  In  her  theory 
of  Grail  origins  she  derives  this  feature  of  the  Grail  procession  (which 
is  not  universal  in  the  Grail  romances)  from  the  Weeping  Women  of 
the  ancient  Adonis  festival.  But  in  a  scene  of  mysterious  sorrow,  why 
should  one  seek  outside  of  the  situation  itself  the  suggestion  of  women 


Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sone  de  Nausay  349 

recognizes  at  once  in  the  Grail-bearer  the  goddess  whom  he  had 
met  on  his  way  to  the  Grail  castle  and  who  had  warned  him  as 
to  what  he  should  do  there  (11.  28345 ff.).  He  now  recalls  an- 
other of  her  admonitions  —  namely,  that  when  he  saw  her  again 
with  five  maidens  in  her  company,  he  should  not  fail  to  ask  what 
they  were  doing.  Gawain,  accordingly,  asks  the  unspelling  ques- 
tion, and  the  Grail  people  rejoice  at  the  freedom  which,  through 
this  act  of  Gawain's,  they  have  regained.  Strangest  of  all,  how- 
ever, the  old  lord  of  the  Grail  castle  now  tells  Gawain  that  he 
and  his  company  are,  in  reality,  dead.  They  had  been  doomed 
to  this  life-in-death  as  a  penance  for  sin  which  they  had  com- 
mitted in  the  form  of  strife  among  kinsmen,  and  nothing  but  the 
unspelling  question  could  deliver  them.  Only  the  maidens  of  the 
Grail  procession  were  not  spirits.  After  this  pronouncement  he 
and  his  company  vanish.  Thus  Gawain,  as  nowhere  else  in  the 
Grail  romances,  is  permitted  to  achieve  the  quest  of  the  sacred 
vessel. 

It  has  been  generally  assumed,  and  rightly,  no  doubt,  that 
Heinrich  von  dem  Turlin  derived  much  of  his  material  from  French 
romances  that  are  no  longer  extant,  but  there  is  no  compelling 
reason  for  adopting  this  hypothesis  in  regard  to  the  episode  of  the 
Grail  castle.  As  was  inevitable,  every  romancer  that  dealt  with 
this  theme  introduced  some  variations  into  his  description  of  the 
scene,  and  the  variations  which  we  find  in  the  present  instance, 
including  the  striking  folk-tale  conception  of  the  phantom  king 
and  courtiers,  are  such  as  a  German  poet  could  have  imagined 
just  as  well  as  a  French  one.13  We  need  not  suppose,  either,  with 

uttering-  laments  V  Of  course,  after  one  writer  had  started  this  inno- 
vation, other  writers  would  imitate  him.  If  one  is  to  seek  for  an 
original  of  this  feature  in  some  external  source,  the  Gospels,  of  course, 
furnish  the  example  which  is  nearest  to  hand,  in  the  women  who 
lament  at  the  grave  of  Our  Lord.  And  it  is  to  be  remembered  that 
in  every  extant  version  of  the  Grail  theme,  the  Grail  is  regarded  as 
Christian. 

The  idea  that  the  Grail  maiden  was  a  goddess  is,  of  course, 
not  French.  It  is  more  natural,  however,  in  a  German  poet  who  was 
doubtless  as  interested  in  Frau  Saelde,  Frau  Venus,  etc.,  as  other 
countrymen  of  his  in  that  age  were. 


350  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Gaston  Paris,14  that  Heinrich  made  Gawain  the  hero  of  the  Grail 
adventure,  because  he  misunderstood  the  intentions  of  Chretien 
in  his  Perceval.  If  the  author  of  the  Queste,  a  few  years  before, 
supplanted  Perceval  as  the  Grail  Winner  by  Galahad,  an  entirely 
new  creation,  it  would  be,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  just  as  easy  for 
the  German  poet  to  divert  this  honor  to  the  credit  of  Gawain,  who 
was  already  the  most  famous  figure  among  the  knights  of  Ar- 
thur's court. 

2.  Sone  de  Nausay.15  This  is  a  French  romance  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  a  tedious  poem  of  21,321  lines, 
which  in  its  incidents  is  often  similar  to  the  Arthurian  romances, 
but  is  not  really  connected  with  Arthur  and  his  knights  —  not 
even  in  its  Grail  episodes,  which  alone  concern  us  here. 

After  various  adventures  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland, 
Sone,  the  hero  of  the  romance,  goes  to  Norway  with  Alain,  king 
of  that  country.  He  is  taken  (11.  4339 ff.)  from  the  mainland 
to  the  Grail  castle,  which  is  a  monastery  situated  on  an  isle,  not 
far  from  the  shore.  One  is  surprised  at  the  flora  and  fauna  which 
Sone  finds  in  Norway  —  almond  and  olive  trees,  camels,  grif- 
fins and  what  not.16   The  island  of  the  Grail  castle  is  square,  with 

,4  Histoire  litteraire  de  la  France,  XXX,  44.  Ibid.,  43,  he 
thinks  that  Heinrich,  alone,  is  responsible  for  the  incidents  of  the  episode. 

15  Edited  by  Moritz  Goldschinidt  as  vol.  216  of  the  Bibliothek 
des  Litterarischen  Vereins  in  Stuttgart  (Tiibingen,  1899).  He  says 
nothing  as  to  the  date.  A.  Scheler,  Le  Bibliophile  Beige,  p.  253 
(1866),  puts  it  in  the  thirteenth  century,  although  he  does  not  say 
in  which  half.    The  romance,  however,  evidently  belongs  to  the  latter  half. 

18  In  his  "Sone  de  Nansai  et  la  Norvege,"  Romania,  XXXV, 
555,  (1906),  K.  Nyrop,  whilst  recognizing  these  fantastic  features  of 
the  descriptions,  argues  that  in  certain  matters  of  custom,  fauna,  etc., 
the  author  displays  a  knowledge  of  Norway  which  he  could  only  have 
acquired  by  actual  travel  in  the  country.  I  do  not,  however,  feel 
convinced.  As  far  as  custom  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
romancer  is  much  more  likely  to  be  adapting  materials  here  which 
originally  related  to  the  Saxons  and  which  he  drew  from  Wace's 
Roman  de  Brut  or  some  later  Brut.  Moreover,  the  name  of  the 
Grail  castle,  Galoche(s),  Galoces,  is,  surely,  not  a  corruption  of 
Kastala-Klaustr  (name  of  one  of  the  old  Norwegian  monasteries),  as 
Nyrop  (p.  568,  note)  is  inclined  to  think,  but  of  Old  French  Galesche, 


Peredur,  Diu  Crone,  and  Sone  de  Nausay  351 

a  tower  at  each  corner  of  the  square  and  the  Grail  castle  in  the 
middle.  The  place  is  ideally  beautiful,  with  sculptured  marble 
walls  enclosing  the  adjacent  lawn  and  with  springs  and  almond 
and  olive  groves  nearby.  On  the  walk  there  were  images  of  leo- 
pards, which,  when  the  wind  struck  their  open  mouths,  emitted 
the  loveliest  music.  Sone  learns  from  the  abbot  of  the  Grail 
castle  that  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  having  arrived  from  Ascalon 
(in  Palestine),  equipped  with  arms,  had  expelled  the  Saracens 
from  Norway  (1.  475 f.),  converted  the  people,  and  made  himself 
king.  Joseph  loved  the  daughter  of  the  pagan  king  whom  he 
had  slain,  had  her  baptized,  married  her,  and  begot  a  son  upon  her, 
and  the  son  was,  likewise,  crowned.  Nevertheless,  his  wife  con- 
tinued to  hate  him  for  killing  her  father  and  many  of  her  friends. 
God  afflicted  Joseph  for  this  foolish  marriage,  so  that  he  was 
unable  to  feed  or  help  himself,  and  a  physical  blight  fell  on 
his  land,  now  called  Lorgres  (Logres)  on  account  of  its  sorrows. 
Fishing  was  his  main  solace,  whilst  he  was  in  this  crippled  con- 
dition, and  he  came  to  be  known  as  the  Fisher  King  (1.  4823). 
At  last,  a  knight  cured  him  and  he  confounded  the  misbelievers. 
Joseph's  son,  Adam,  died  first,  and  his  body  was  placed  in  a 
shrine  in  the  Grail  castle.  Later  Joseph,  himself,  passed  away, 
but,  before  dying,  he  provided  for  the  foundation  of  the  Grail 
castle  or  monastery.  It  was  inhabited  by  thirteen  monks  (typi- 
fying Christ  and  his  twelve  apostles).  The  abbot,  then  (11.  4885 ff.), 
produces  the  Grail,  a  relic  of  the  true  cross,  and  the  bleeding 
lance.  The  people  kneel  and  exclaim,  "mea  culpa",  as  this  is 
done.  The  abbot  next  shows  them  the  respective  shrines,  where 
Joseph  and  his  son  lay.  A  feast  follows,  and  Alain  and  Sone, 
after  that,  quit  the  island.  We  hear  later  on  of  a  sword  which 
Joseph  had  guarded  his  realm  with  and  which  the  abbot  had  given 
to  Sone  for  the  latter's  combat  with  a  giant  King  of  Scotland. 
This  sword,  however,  was  to  be  returned  to  the  abbot  after  the 


Galesce  (=  Welsh).  The  Grail  castle,  being  situated  in  Gales  (=  Wales) 
was  a  "castiax  galesches".  Owing  to  some  misunderstanding  or  to 
the  corruption  of  his  source,  the  author  of  the  Sone  de  Nausay  mistook 
the  adjective  for  a  proper  name. 


352  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

combat  —  an  agreement,  however,  which  Sone  was  tardy  in  ful- 
filling. 

After  the  death  of  Alain  (11.  11778ff.),  his  daughter,  Odee, 
inherits  the  kingdom.  She  had  long  been  in  love  with  Sone,  and 
ultimately  marries  him.  They  go  to  the  Grail  castle  to  be  crown- 
ed (11.  16914ff.)  and  after  the  coronation  there  is  a  religious 
service  in  which  the  Grail  and  the  relics  exhibited  on  the  hero's 
previous  visit  to  the  isle  are  brought  forth,  with  the  addition 
of  a  candlestick  that  was  borne  by  an  angel,  when  the  Virgin 
Mary  gave  birth  to  Jesus.  It  may  be  remarked  that  in  this 
passage  the  last  vestige  of  secrecy  about  the  Grail  has  disappeared. 
The  Grail  service  is  conducted  in  the  sight  of  the  whole  people 
(11.  17055  ff.)  and  after  the  ceremony  is  over,  the  abbot  puts  the 
sacred  vessel  into  an  ivory  box  (11.  17103ff.),  exactly  as  a  priest 
of  the  period,  after  the  sacramental  service,  would  restore  the  cha- 
lice to  its  appointed  receptacle.  Indeed,  the  main  interest  of  these 
Grail  episodes  of  the  Sone  de  Nausay  lies  in  the  fact  that  we  see 
here  the  old  veil  of  mystery  that  had  surrounded  the  holy  vessel 
in  the  earlier  treatments  of  the  theme  finally  thrown  aside  and 
the  identity  of  the  Grail  with  a  vessel  of  the  eucharist  acknow- 
ledged without  disguise.17 


17  In  his  edition  of  the  poem  Goldschmidt,  p.  556,  assumes  that 
its  author  used  lost  sources  that  Wolfram  also  used.  His  reasons  for 
this  assumption  are:  1.  that  in  both  "verbotene  Minne"  is  the  cause 
of.  the  wounding  of  the  Grail  King — Joseph  in  Sone  de  Nausay,  An- 
fortas  in  the  Parzival,  2.  that  both  show  a  connection  with  the 
8  wan  -knight  story.  S.  Singer  and  Miss  Weston  have  adopted  Gold- 
schmidt's  suggestions  enthusiastically  —  the  former  in  "Uber  die  Quelle 
von  Wolfram's  Parzival",  Zs.  /.  d.  A.,  XLIV,  330  (1900),  the  latter 
in  "Notes  on  the  Grail  Romances",  Romania,  XLIII,  403  ff.  (1914). 
Singer  goes  so  far  as  to  accept  the  points  which  Goldschmidt  urges 
as  definitive  proof  that  Wolfram  used  a  different  source  from  Chretien's 
Perceval.  "Nur  ein  voreingenommener,"  he  declares,  "kann  noch  be- 
haupten,  dass  Wolfram  Chrestien  beniitzt  hat."  But  the  two  scholars, 
just  named,  are  blinded  by  their  enthusiasm.  Take  the  first  of  the 
two  points.  There  is,  in  reality,  hardly  any  resemblance  at  all  between 
the  cases  of  the  crippled  Grail  Kings  in  the  two  romances.  As  we 
have  seen   in  the  Sone  de  Nausay,   Joseph   became   infatuated  with 


Peredur,  Diu  Crdne,  and  Sone  de  Nausay  353 


the  heathen  princess,  and  had  her  baptized  —  though  she  did  not 
accept  Christianity  in  her  heart  and  hated  him  for  perfectly  natural 
reasons  —  and  then  married  her.  It  was  a  foolish  match  for  him 
to  make,  but  the  marriage  was  an  entirely  legimitate  one.  On  the 
other  hand,  Wolfram,  472,  1.  26,  stresses  the  fact  that  it  was  pride 
("hochvart")  that  brought  about  Anfortas's  misfortune  and  caused  him 
to  seek  love  "uzerhalp  der  kiusche  sinne",  1.  30.  His  liaison  was 
not  with  the  heathen  princess,  Secundille,  as  Miss  Weston,  p.  412, 
states,  but  with  Orgeluse,  who  is  a  "lady  of  Logres",  and  not  a  heathen. 
As  to  her  relations  with  Anfortas,  see  what  Orgeluse  herself  says, 
Parzivaly  616,  llff.  Equally  without  warrant  is  Miss  Weston's  assertion, 
ibid.,  p.  412,  that  the  Sone  de  Nausay  contains  a  Templar  element. 

As  regards  the  combination  in  the  French  romance  of  the  Grail 
with  the  Swan-knight  story,  the  only  trace  of  this  in  the  poem  is  to 
be  found  in  the  four  lines,  20807  —  20811,  where  it  is  said  that 
Sone's  son,  Houdyans,  married  Matabrune,  a  cruel  lady  from  the  big 
and  fertile  island  (sic)  of  Bohemia.  This  has,  however,  no  significance 
whatever.  The  author  is  merely  doing  here  what  he  does  elsewhere 
in  the  romance,  viz.  bringing  in  as  minor  actors  in  the  story  characters 
who  were  well  known  in  contemporary  romance.  Cp.  Meleagant,  11. 
17151ff.,  Orson,  18017ff.,  Madoc,  18162ff.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
the  prose  introduction  (pp.  552 ff.),  which  furnishes  a  summary  of  the 
events  of  the  poem  and  is  obviously  by  a  different  hand,  we  have  the 
Swan-knight  tale  epitomized  in  eight  or  nine  lines  at  the  point  where 
Matabrune  is  mentioned  in  the  poem.  There  is  nothing  singular  in 
this,  however,  since  the  author  of  this  introduction  (like  the  author  of 
the  poem),  doubtless,  lived  in  the  Netherlands  or  in  the  contiguous 
territory  —  that  is  to  say,  in  the  region  where  the  Swan-knight  legend 
was  most  widely  current. 

As  far  as  the  supposed  resemblances  between  our  romance  and 
the  Perlesvaus  (cp.  Miss  Weston,  p.  411)  are  concerned,  these  stand 
the  test  of  an  examination  about  as  poorly  as  the  matters  I  have  just 
dealt  with;  but,  if  they  were  real,  what  difference  would  that  make? 
The  Perlesvaus,  like  virtually  all  other  Arthurian  romances  of  any 
importance,  had  been  in  circulation  long  before  the  Sone  de  Nausay 
was  written,  and  its  pages  were  open  to  anybody  who  chose  to 
read  them. 

For  the  description  of  the  square  island.  11.  17131  ff.,  (which  lies 
not  far  from  the  Grail  castle),  and  its  parallel  in  the  Latin  romance, 
Historia  Meriadoci,  pp.  43  f.,  see  the  discussion,  pp.  XXXIV f.,  in  my 
edition  of  the  Historia  Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii. 


Chapter  VIII. 
Other  Theories  concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail. 

For  the  sake  of  completeness  I  will  summarize  very  briefly 
certain  theories  of  minor  importance  that  have  been  advanced  to 
explain  the  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail. 

1.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  derive  the  conception  of  the 
Grail  from  late  Jewish,  Syrian,  and  Arabic  legends,  which  are 
supposed  to  have  reached  Western  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
The  authors  of  such  theories  have  none  of  them  been  especial 
students  of  the  Old  French  romances,  in  which,  of  course,  the 
legend  was  first  developed.  With  the  exception  of  Wesselofsky, 
they  all  start  from  Wolfram's  Tarzival  in  wnich  (alone  of  all  the 
Grail  texts)  the  Grail  is  not  a  vessel  of  any  kind,  but  merely  a 
stone.  As  we  have  seen,  however,  this  conception  of  Wolfram's 
is  indisputably  the  result  of  some  misunderstanding,  on  his  part, 
of  his  French  original,  and  so  the  whole  basis  of  these  oriental 
theories  is  false. 

The  authors  of  these  speculations  and  the  essential  features 
of  the  respective  theories  are  as  follows: 

(a)  M.  Gaster,  "The  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail,"  Folk-Lore, 
II,  50ff.,  198ff.,  (1891):  The  Grail  quest  sprang  from  an  episode 
of  the  legend  of  Alexander  the  Great,  viz.  the  Iter  ad  Paradisum, 
or  journey  to  the  Earthly  Paradise  and  the  marvellous  castle  or 
temple  of  the  sun.  The  Grail,  itself,  was  a  certain  sacred  stone 
of  the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  still  preserved  in  the  so- 
called  Temple  of  the  Rock  of  that  city.  A  very  severe  criticism 
of  Gaster's  theory  which  Alfred  Nutt  appended  to  the  second 
instalment  of  Gaster's  study  seems  to  have  discouraged  him  from 
ever  publishing  the  promised  continuation.  Nutt  pointed  out  that 
the  idea  of  connecting  the  Grail  story  with  the  Iter  ad  Paradisum 


Other  Theories  concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail        355 

had  already  been  advanced  by  Weismann  in  his  edition  (1850) 
of  the  Middle  High  German  Alexander  by  Lamprecht,  II,  212, 
note  —  moreover,  that  the  description  of  the  temple  of  the  sun 
in  the  French  Alexander  romances,  which  alone  Chretien  and  the 
authors  of  the  other  Grail  romances  would  have  consulted,  bears 
no  resemblance  to  the  story  of  the  Grail  in  these  latter  works. 
The  conception  of  the  Grail  as  a  6tone,  he  observes,  too,  is  pe- 
culiar to  Wolfram. 

(b)  Paul  Hagen,  Der  Gral  (Strassburg,  1900):  Wolfram- 
Guiot  represents  the  legend  in  its  primitive  form  in  many  res- 
pects better  than  Chretien,  and  he  may  have  had  an  Arabic  source. 
It  developed  from  the  worship  of  baetyli  (holy  stones)  in  the 
East.  The  author  tries  to  connect  it  particularly  with  the  legend 
of  Prester  John.  Hagen's  work  is  important  for  Wolfram,  but 
not  for  the  Grail  legend,  in  general. 

(c)  Willy  Staerk,  Tiber  den  Ur sprung  der  Grallegende,  (Tu- 
bingen and  Leipzig,  1903):  The  Grail  legend  is  simply  another 
form  of  the  legend  of  an  Earthly  Paradise,  which  is  found  in 
all  parts  of  the  world  and,  especially,  in  the  East.  The  author 
gives  an  interesting  collection  of  examples  of  the  latter  idea,  but 
presents  no  evidence  to  establish  an  historical  connection  between 
the  two  legends. 

(d)  A.  N.  Wesselofsky,  "Zur  Frage  uber  die  Heimath  der 
Legende  vom  heiligen  Gral,"  Archiv  fiir  slavische  Philologie, 
XXIII,  321ff.  (1901).  For  a  list  of  Wesselofsky's  earlier  wri- 
tings on  the  Grail  theme  (mostly  in  Russian)  cp.  ibid.,  p.  321, 
note.  The  author,  who  is  an  advocate  of  the  Christian  origin 
of  the  Grail,  concentrates  his  attention  on  the  legend  of  Joseph 
of  Arimathea  —  and,  hence,  among  the  Grail  romances,  on  those 
in  which  Joseph  plays  a  leading  part,  viz.  Robert's  Joseph  and 
the  Grand  St.  Graal  (Estoire  del  Saint  Graal).1     In  these  ro- 

1  The  oriental  Joseph  legend  which  he  outlines,  pp.  325  ff.  is  now 
accessible  in  a  German  tianslation  by  A.  Harnack:  "Ein  in  georgischer 
Sprache  iiberliefertes  Apokryphon  des  Joseph  von  Aramathia,"  Sitzungs- 
berichte  der  koniglich  preussischen  Akademie  der  Wissenschaften, 
Jahrgang  1901,  pp.  920 ff.  The  only  part  of  it  which  is  of  interest 
at  all  to  Grail  students,  however,  is  a  mere  version  of  the  Gospel  of 


356  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

mances,  of  course,  the  Grail  is,  as  in  the  other  French  ro- 
mances, a  vessel  of  the  sacrament.  Wesselofsky's  theory  involves 
all  sorts  of  inadmissible  assumptions,  e.  g.  that  the  passages  about 
Joseph  and  Glastonbury  in  the  De  Antiquitate  Ecclesiae  Glasto- 
niensis  are  genuine,  that  the  author  of  the  Grand  St.  Graal  drew 
(independently  of  Robert  de  Boron)  on  an  oriental  Christian- 
Jewish  legend  for  his  conceptions  of  the  Grail.  The  object  of  his 
article  is,  as  he  says  (p.  322),  to  prove  "dass  in  den  Quellen 
der  Romane  vom  heil.  Gral  sich  Legenden  einer  christlich-ju- 
dischen  Diaspora  in  Palastina,  Syrien  und  Athiopien  abspiegeln 
und  daB  ihre  Anpassung  an  das  Abendland  sich  auf  dem  Wege  der 
Ubertragung  vollzogen  habe,  wobei  es  augenscheinlich  ganz  me- 
chanisch  herging."  In  order  to  establish  a  connection  of  the 
Grail  romances  with  the  East  —  especially  with  localities  in  Syria 
and  Mesopotamia  —  the  author  indulges,  inter  alia,  in  the  most 
fantastic  Oriental  derivations  of  the  names  of  places  ind  persons 
in  the  Grail  romances  —  above  all,  in  the  Grand  St.  Graal.2 

(e)  Theodor  Sterzenbach,  Ur sprung  und  Entwickelung  der 
Sage  vom  heiligen  Gral  (Mtinster  dissertation,  1908).  He  identi- 
fies the  Grail  with  a  "missorium"  (portable  altar-stone,  accord- 
ing to  Sterzenbach)  which  the  Roman  general,  Aetius  (fifth  cen- 

Pseudo-Nicodemus.  To  be  sure,  it  offers  some  variants,  but  the  main 
one  which  represents  Joseph  as  receiving  the  blood  of  Jesus  in  a  head- 
cloth  and  a  large  cloth  (p.  923),  is  irreconcilable  with  the  conceptions 
of  the  Grail  romances. 

2  Precisely  the  same  criticism  applies  to  Miss  M.  A.  Murray's 
attempt  to  establish  an  Egyptian  origin  for  the  Grail  legend.  See  her 
"Egypt  in  the  Grail  Romance,"  in  the  organ  of  Egyptian  research, 
edited  by  Flinders  Petrie  and  entitled  Ancient'  Egypt — volume  for 
1916,  Part  1^  pp.  Iff.,  Part  II,  54ff.  She  takes  the  Estoire  as  the 
basis  of  her  studies  and  in  Part  I  offers  fanciful  Egyptian  derivations 
for  some  of  its  names.  In  Part  II,  she  gives  some  illustrations  of  the 
Eucharistic  ritual  of  the  Coptic  churches.  These  illustrations  are  in- 
teresting in  themselves,  but  throw  no  additional  light  on  Grail  problems. 
Outside  of  the  Estoire,  the  author  evidently  has  little  or  no  acquain- 
tance with  the  long  and  intricate  Old  French  texts,  which  must  con- 
stitute the  true  basis  for  all  study  of  Grail  origins.  She,  accordingly, 
makes  no  allowance  for  invention  on  the  part  of  the  authors  of  these 
texts,  the  possibility  of  one  developing  suggestions  from  the  other,  etc. 


Other  Theories  concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail       357 

tury)  is  said  to  have  presented  to  Thorismund,  King  of  the  Wesfr- 
goths.  He  still  further  identifies  it  with  a  "  tabula  Salomonis" 
that  was  captured  by  the  Arabs  in  their  invasion  of  Spain  in 
711,  and  King  Roderick,  the  Spanish  monarch,  who  was  slain 
on  that  occasion,  is  the  Fisher  King.  This  is  all,  really,  too 
flimsy  for  discussion. 

(f)  Ludwig  Emil  Iselin:  Der  morgenldndische  Ur sprung  der 
Grallegende  (Halle,  1909).  The  author  argues  that  a  Syriac  book 
of  sagas,  Book  of  the  Cavern  of  Treasures,  is  the  source  of  the 
Grail  legend.  This  book  dates  from  the  fifth  or  sixth  century. 
It  is  one  of  the  numerous  Oriental  works  that  pretend  to  give 
a  complete  and  edifying  history  of  Adam  and  his  earliest  de- 
scendants, filling  out  gaps  in  the  Scriptures.  The  only  tolerable 
analogue  to  the  Grail  conceptions,  however,  which  the  book  offers 
is  in  the  story  of  Melchisidek,  who  guarded  the  tomb  of  Adam 
(this  tomb  being  unapproachable  by  the  profane)  and  obtained 
strength  and  nourishment  in  a  supernatural  manner,  and  on  whose 
offerings  the  Holy  Spirit  descended.  But  the  similarity  here  is 
of  too  vague  a  nature  to  count  for  anything  and  the  theory  has 
gained  virtually  no  adherents.3 

2.  Leopold  von  Schroeder,  the  eminent  Sanskrit  scholar,  in 
his  treatise  Die  Wurzeln  der  Sage  vom  heiligen  Gralf  has  endeav- 
ored to  prove  that  the  Grail  legend  is  simply  a  variant  of  the 


3  See  the  very  good  review  of  Iselin's  book  by  E.  B  rugger,  Zs. 
f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXVI3,  74 ff.  (1910).  A.  Nutt,  in  The  Aca- 
demy for  May  7,  1910,  though  rejecting  the  theory  of  the  origin  of 
the  Grail  legend  advocated  by  Iselin,  commends  his  book  as  "the  most 
convincing  plea  for  the  purely  Christian  origin  of  the  bulk  of  the  Grail 
cycle  with  which  I  am  acquainted.1'  But,  as  I  have  said  above,  Iselin 
proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  the  Grail,  according  to  the  primary 
conception  of  it,  was  a  stone.  Now,  that  assumption  is  indisputably 
false,  and,  consequently,  his  solution  '"of  the  "psychological  problem  in- 
volved," as  to  how  the  sacrament  of  the  Eucharist  came  "to  be  adapted 
for  the  purpose  of  secular  entertainment,"  which  Nutt  finds  "plausible", 
is  without  any  real  basis. 

4  Sitzungsberichte  der  Kaiserlichen  Akademie  der  Wissen- 
schaften.  Philosophisch-Historische  Classe,  Band  166,  2.  Abhand- 
lung.     Wien,  1910. 


358  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sun-myth.  He  seeks  analogies  in  the  Rig-Veda,  which  some  scho- 
lars have  dated  as  far  back  as  1500  B.  C.  In  the  Rig-Veda,  the 
sun  is  conceived  of  as  a  vessel  containing  hot  milk  or  broth. 
Schroeder  thinks  that  the  same  thing  is  true  of  the  moon,  though 
here  the  matter  is  not  so  clear.  He  cites  (pp.  34  ff.)  parallels 
also  from  the  mythological  conceptions  of  other  Indo-European 
races  and  believes  (although  there  is  no  extant  evidence  to  that 
effect)  that  similar  conceptions  prevailed  among  the  Celts  and 
passed  from  them  into  the  Grail  romances.  Altogether  Schroeder 
ransacks  mediaeval  legend  for  parallels  to  various  features  of  the 
Grail  legend.  He  shows  no  knowledge  of  the  Old  French  ro- 
mances and  the  Indian  analogues  are  so  remote  in  time  (some 
2,000  years)  and  in  space  that  they  are  really  of  no  value.  One 
may  remark  that  at  one  time  or  another,  it  has  been  the  fate  of 
virtually  every  great  saga  to  be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  mere 
variant  of  the  sun-myth.  The  turn  of  the  Grail-legend  was  bound 
to  come.5  Another  Austrian  scholar,  Victor  Junk,  in  his  Gral- 
sage  und  Graldiehlung  des  Mittelalters,6  accepts  Schroeder's 
theory  of  the  ultimate  derivation  of  the  Grail-legend,  but  regards 
as  the  immediate  source  the  Breton  tale  of  Peronnik  V idiot e,  which 
he  takes  as  the  myth  reduced  to  the  form  of  a  fairy-tale.  This  tale 
however,  was  first  written  down  by  Emil  Souvestre  in  1845 — 6, 
so  that  no  one  can  say  whether  it  was  in  existence  in  the  twelfth 
century,  or,  if  so,  whether  it  may  not  have  been  modified  in 
the  course  of  subsequent  centuries  directly  or  indirectly  by  the 
Old  French  romances  concerning  Perceval,  or  finally  whether  the 
suspicion  expressed  by  some  scholars  may  not  be  well-grounded 
—  viz.  that  Souvestre  " cooked"  the  story  as  it  was  current  in 
oral  form.   But,  after  all,  the  story  resembles  the  Grail-romances 


5  For  a  refutation  of  Schroder's  theory,  see  the  reviews  of  his 
work  by  E.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXVII2,  163ff.  (1911) 
and  A.  C.  L.  Brown,  Journal  of  English  and  Germanic  Philology 
for  Jan.  1913  —  also,  E.  Windisch,  Das  Keltische  Britannien  bis 
zu  Kaiser  Arthur,  pp.  119ff. 

6  Ibid.,  Band  168,  4.  Abhandlung,  Wien,  1911.  —  W.  Hertz, 
Sage  vom  Parzival  und,  dem  Gral,  p.  25,  (Breslau,  1882),  had  already 
spoken  of  Peronnik  Vidiote  as  plainly  connected  with  the  Perceval  story. 


Other  Theories  concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail        359 

in  so  few  respects  that  it  could  not  possibly  be  regarded  as  the 
source  of  these  romances,  even  if  we  waived  the  objections  just 
enumerated.  W.  Golther,  in  his  review  of  Junk's  treatise  (see 
Liter aturblatt  for  Dec.  1912)  has  pointed  out  that  Peronnik  is 
rather  a  variant  of  another  well-known  fairy-tale,  The  Journey 
for  the  Water  of  Life. 

Vienna,  of  recent  years,  has  been  particularly  fertile  in  wild 
theories  respecting  Arthurian  themes.  Julius  Pokorny,  the  well- 
known  grammarian  (Old  Irish)  has  attained  the  ne  plus  ultra 
in  this  line  when  he  undertook  to  prove  {Der  Ur sprung  der  Arthur- 
sage:  Mitteilungen  der  anthropologischen  Gesellschaft  in  Wien, 
vol.  39,  1909)  that  the  whole  Arthurian  story  is  simply  a  cuckoo- 
saga  in  disguise.  This  writer  derives  the  Grail  legend  from  the 
Irish  saga  of  Cuchullin  (see  above  Mittheilungen,  vol.  42,  1912), 
which  in  turn  he  derives  from  the  same  Indo-European  myth  as 
von  Schroeder.7 


7  One  might  include  among  these  minor  theories  concerning  the 
origin  of  the  Grail  legend  the  one  which  G.  Baist  has  briefly  outlined 
in  his  Parzival  und  der  Gral  (Freiburg,  1909),  pp.  39 ff.,  and  which 
in  certain  of  its  aspects,  I  have  discussed  above,  p.  264,  note  54,  and 
p.  266,  note  56.  As  we  have  seen,  Baist  assumes  that  the  Grail  ori- 
ginally (i.  e.  as  set  forth  in  the  "livre"  which  Count  Philip  of  Alsace 
gave  to  Chretien)  had  no  marvellous  properties  of  any  kind,  (religious 
or  otherwise),  and  that  the  whole  incident  of  the  Grail  procession  is 
simply  intended  to  exemplify  the  rule  that  silence  is  not  always  golden. 
Any  other  object  would  have  done  just  as  well.  The  question  (in 
Chretien),  "Whom  does  the  Grail  serve?"  is  merely  the  question  that 
serves  to  undo  a  spell,  which  is  a  frequent  motif  in  saga  and  fairy 
tales.  Chretien  purposely  surrounds  the  matter  with  a  factitious  mystery. 
Furthermore,  the  poet  introduces  the  bleeding  lance  with  reference  to 
tne  meeting  of  Gawain  and  Perceval,  which  he  planned  for  the  end 
of  his  poem.  Chretien  represents  the  Grail  king  as  nourished  by  the 
"ostie"  (host),  not  because  of  any  miraculous  qualities  of  the  Grail, 
but  because  he  was  a  holy  man.  Count  Philip's  book,  he  thinks,  be- 
longed to  the  Latin  "Unterhaltungsliteratur"  of  the  early  Middle  Ages, 
and  "Weisheitslehren"  (e.  g.  silence  is  not  always  golden)  were,  doubt- 
less, emphasized  in  it. 

Baist  brings  forward  no  evidence  to  support  the  points  which  he 
makes,  and  as  far  as  I  am  aware,  has  won  no  adherents  for  his  theory. 


360  Evohition  of  Arthurian  Romance 

3.  In  concluding  this  chapter  on  the  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail, 
mention  should  be  made  of  the  hexagonal  dish  or  basin,8  called 
the  Sacro  (Sagro)  Catino  in  the  cathedral  of  San  Lorenzo  at  Genoa, 
which  was  long  accepted  as  the  Holy  Grail,  not  only  locally,  but  by 
learned  men  elsewhere.9  This  vessel,  which  was  prized  by  the 
Genoese  beyond  measure  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century,  was  re- 
garded down  to  the  first  decade  of  the  last  century  as  of  emerald 
and  was  generally  identified  with  the  dish  of  the  Last  Supper. 
In  the  eighteenth  century,  Fra  Gaetano  da  Teresa  produced  a 
book  of  335  pages  on  the  subject;  entitled  II  Catino  di  Smeraldo 
Orientale,  Gemma  consagrata  da  N.  S.  Gesu  Cristo  nelV  Ultima 
Cena  degli  Azimi,  etc.  (Genoa,  1726).  This  is  a  work  of  enormous 
industry  and  nearly  everything  that  modern  scholars  have  said 
about  the  Sacro  Catino  is  drawn  from  it  directly  or  indirectly.10 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  author  has  the  firmest  faith  that 
this  is  the  veritable  dish  which  was  used  by  Our  Lord  at  the  Last 
Supper. 

The  first  mention  of  this  relic  occurs  in  the  Bellum  Sacrum11 
of  William  of  Tyre  —  a  chronicle  of  the  Crusades  —  in  the  latter 


8  There'  is  a  picture  of  it  in  C.  Rohault  de  Fleury's  Memoir e 
stir  les  Instruments  de  la  Passion,  Plate  23  (Paris,   1870). 

9  Cp.  the  article,  Graal,  in  J.  B.  B.  Roquefort's  Dictionnaire 
de  la  langue  liomane,  (Paris,  1808).  P.  Paris,  of  course,  did  not 
share  this  belief,  but  he  thought  that  this  very  vessel  might  have  given 
the  nrst  impulse  to  the  composition  of  the  Grail  romances.  See  his 
edition  of  the  Old  French  (thirteenth  century)  translation  of  William 
of  Tyre,  Guillaume  de  Tyr  et  ses  Continuateurs,  I,  353,  note  3 
(Paris,  1879),  where  he  says:  "Mais  peut-etre  l'auteur  des  deux  fameux 
Romans  du  Saint  Graal,  devenus  Introduction  et  le  denoiiment 
d'anciennes  legendes  bretonnes  d'un  ordre  tout  different,  etait-il  parti 
de  ce  vase  de  Cesaree  [i.  e.  the  Sacro  Catino]  pour  donner  carriere 
a  ses  mystiques  imaginations." 

10  This  and  Roquefort's  article,  Graal,  just  cited,  are  the  main 
sources  of  the  best  modern  treatment  of  the  subject,  viz.,  the  one  in 
W.  Hertz's  Parzival,  pp.  456 ff.  Hertz  is  discussing  here  blood  relics, 
in  general. 

11  Book  X,  ch.  16. 


Other  Theories  concerning  the  Origin  of  the  Grail       361 

part  of  the  twelfth  century.  There  is  no  mention  made  here  of 
the  identification  of  the  vessel  with  the  dish  of  the  Last  Supper, 
although  the  chronicle  tells  us  that  the  Genoese  estimated  its  value 
so  highly  that  they  accepted  it  as  their  sole  share  of  the  booty 
on  the  fall  of  Caesarea.  On  the  other  hand,  William  already 
intimates  a  doubt  as  to  its  being  really  of  emerald,  and  from  the 
vehemence  with  which  Jacobus  de  Voragine,  archbishop  of  Genoa 
and  author  of  the  famous  Legenda  Aurea,  a  hundred  years  later, 
defends  the  venerated  relic12  as  a  genuine  emerald,  questionings 
on  this  head  must  have  become  louder  and  louder  in  the  interval., 
Nearly  five  hundred  years  later  we  find  Fra  Gaetano  still  endeavor- 
ing to  silence  scepticism  on  this  point.13  The  believers  were  fi- 
nally discomfited,  however,  when  in  1806  Napoleon  I  took  the 
Sacro  Catino  to  Paris.  There  it  was  tested  by  a  commission  of 
the  French  Institute  and  declared  to  be  merely  coloured  glass. 
It  was  restored  to  Genoa  in  1814. 

The  earliest  passage  in  which  the  identity  of  the  Genoese 
relic  with  the  dish  of  the  Last  Supper  is  assumed  is  the  one  from 
the  Chronicle  of  Genoa  by  Jacobus  de  Voragine14  to  which  I  have 
already  referred.  He  says  there  that  in  certain  English  books 
it  is  told  how  Nicodemus,  when  he  took  the  body  of  Christ  down 
from  the  Cross,  collected  the  blood  of  Our  Lord  in  an  emerald 
vessel,  "et  illud  vas  dicti  Angli  in  libris  suis  Sanguinalia15  appel- 
lant". This  passage  was  written  manifestly  under  the  influence 
of  the  Grail  romances  —  only  Jacobus  forgets  that  it  was  Joseph 
of  Arimathea  in  the  romances,  and  not  Nicodemus,  who  collected 
the  sacred  blood.   The  Sacro  Catino  he  identifies  with  this  vessel. 

There  are  two  traditions16  as  to  how  the  supposed  emerald 
relic  came  to  Genoa.     According  to  one,  as  has  been  intimated 


12 


In  his  Chronicon  Januense,  ch.  18.     Cp.  the  edition  of  Mu- 
ratori,  Rerum  Italicarum  Scriptores,  IX,  32  f.  (Milan,  1726). 

13  Cp.  Fra  Gaetano,  pp.  Xllff. 

14  See  the  passage  cited  above. 

16  Fra  Gaetano,  p.  138,  quoting  the  passage,  has  here  Sangreal, 
Muratori's  text,  however,  gives,  no  doubt,  the  original  reading. 

18  Cp.  Fra  Gaetano,  pp.  Iff.  and  250 ff.,  respectively.  He  de- 
clines, pp.  272  f.,  to  decide  between  them. 


362  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

above,  it  was  a  part  of  the  Genoese  booty  on  the  capture  of  Cae- 
sarea  in  1101,  during  the  first  Crusade;  according  to  the  other, 
it  came  into  their  possession  in  1147,  on  the  fall  of  Almeria  in 
Spain.  The  Genoese  had  assisted  King  Alfonso  in  the  siege  of 
the  city.  The  testimony  of  William  of  Tyre,  however,  seems  to 
prove  beyond  question  that  the  first  of  these  traditions  is  the 
correct  one. 


PART  ni. 

THE  PROSE  ROMANCES. 


Chapter  L 
Beginnings  of  the  Prose-Romances. 

As  we  have  seen  above,  the  production  of  the  metrical  ro- 
mances was  proceeding  vigorously  in  the  closing  years  of  the  twelfth 
century  and  the  opening  years  of  the  thirteenth,  but  it  was  just 
in  this  period  that  the  new  genre  of  the  prose  romance  began  — 
the  genre  which  long  before  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  destin- 
ed to  eclipse  the  metrical  romances  completely  in  popular  favor. 
The  composition  of  romances  in  prose  is  simply  one  feature  of  the 
general  rise  of  French  prose  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
century,  which,  in  turn,  was  favored,  no  doubt,  by  the  more  gene- 
ral knowledge  of  reading  that  was  characteristic  of  the  time.  The 
author  of  the  Old  French  prose  romance,  the  Mort  Artu,  thought 
it  worth  while  recording  of  Arthur  that  he  knew  enough  of  letters 
to  understand  a  writing.1  We  see,  therefore,  that  even  royal  per- 
sonages were  not  very  learned  in  the  period  under  consideration. 
According  to  Wauchier  de  Denain,2  Perceval  was  still  worse  off, 
for  he  could  not  read  at  all.  As  long  as  facility  in  reading  was 
confined  to  a  few  and  even  members  of  the  higher  classes  were 
mainly  dependent  on  being  read  aloud  to,3  the  traditional  form 

1  Bruce's  Mort  Artu,  p.  50. 

9  Cp.  his  continuation  to  Chretien's  Perceval,  1.  33957,  "Mais 
Pierchevaus  ne  savoit  lire"  (Potvin's  edition).  —  The  line  occurs  in 
the  description  of  Perceval's  adventure  at  Mont  Dolerous.  On  top  of 
the  mountain  there  was  a  pillar  with  an  inscription  on  it,  declaring 
that  the  achievement  of  the  adventure  was  reserved  for  the  best  knight 
in  the  world,  but  Perceval  was  unable  to  read  it.  —  In  the  prose 
Lancelot  (Sommer,  III,  154)  we  are  told  that  Lancelot  could  read, 
but  Gawain  could  not. 

3  In  the  Lancelot  (Sommer,  III,  106)  it  is  said  that  Lancelot's 
mother  used  to  make  her  chaplain  read  saints'  lives  aloud  to  her.  This, 
to  be  sure,  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  she  could  not  read  herself. 
Even  in  antiquity  reading  aloud  and  in  company  was  much  commoner 
than  nowadays.  In  his  Confessions,  Book  VI,  ch.  3,  St.  Augustine 
speaks  of  St.  Ambrose's  habit  of  silent  reading,  as  if  it  were  unusual. 


366  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  narrative  —  namely,  verse  —  was  not  likely  to  yield  ground; 
but  as  soon  as  a  knowledge  of  reading  became  more  general  and 
people  were  no  longer  dependent  on  professional  reciters,  the  su- 
perior attraction  of  prose  for  many  who  were  interested  in  these 
stories  of  love  and  adventure  would  be  sure  to  make  itself  felt. 
What  is  here  said  applies,  of  course,  especially  to  women,  who 
must  have  constituted  the  majority  of  the  romance-writer's 
clientele. 

Owing  to  the  causes   just  indicated,  the  production  of  the 
Arthurian  prose-romances  began  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, and,  to  judge  merely  by  the  bulk  of  what  has  survived, 
it  must  have  been  truly  prodigious  in  the  course  of  the  next  forty 
to  fifty  years,  to  say  nothing  of  the  later  period. 

Probably,  the  earliest  prose-romance  was  the  prose-rendering 
of  Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph  which,  doubtless,  owed  this  distinction 
to  its  quasi-religious  character.  Down  to  this  time  virtually  the 
only  French  prose  consisted  of  brief  saints'  lives,  and  a  work 
of  the  nature  of  the  Joseph,  so  closely  akin  to  that  species  of 
composition,  would  furnish  a  suitable  transition  from  what  was 
substantially  religious  fiction  to  purely  secular  romance.  The 
Merlin  which  comes  immediately  after  the  Joseph  in  Robert's 
scheme,  would  naturally  be  the  next  of  the  romances  to  receive 
a  prose  dress4  —  not  unlikely,  from  the  same  hand  —  and  after 


1  This  prose-rendering  of  Robert's  Merlin  begins,  of  course,  the 
Merlin  branches  in  the  so-called  Walter  Map  and  Robert  de  Boron 
cycles  of  the  prose  romances.  Cp.  Sommer,  II,  3 — 88  and  Huth- 
Merlin,  I,  1  — 146,  respectively.  In  each  of  these  cycles  there  are 
continuations  far  longer  than  the  prose-Robert,  itself. 

Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXIX  \  75  f.  (1905),  thinks, 
too,  that  the  prose-renderings  of  Robert's  Joseph  and  Merlin  were 
the  earliest  prose-romances,  and  suggests  that  their  author  adopted 
this  form,  in  order  to  accentuate  the  historical  character  of  Robert's 
narratives  the  better.  The  reason  for  this  adoption  given  above,  how- 
ever, seems  more  satisfactory. 

On  the  other  hand.  G.  Paris,  Melanges  de  litterature  frangaise 
du  moyen  age,  I,  50,  expresses  the  opinion  that  the  Lancelot  (in  an 
earlier  form  than  that  which  we  possess)  was  the  first  prose  romance. 


Beginnings  of  the  Prose- Romances  367 

these  would  follow  the  longer  prose  romances  which  have  come 
down  to  us,  also,  in  cyclic  form  and  which,  as  we  may  safely 
assert,  were  composed  in  prose  from  the  start.5 

Having  already  dealt  with  the  brief  prose-renderings  of  Ro- 
bert's Joseph  and  Merlin,6  we  shall  begin  our  consideration  of  the 
prose  romances  in  this  place  with  the  great  cyclic  romances  in 
prose,  which,  as  has  just  been  said,  never  existed  in  metrical  form. 

He  supports  this  opinion,  however,  with  no  evidence.  The  comparative 
brevity  of  the  prose  Joseph  and  Merlin,  also,  makes  their  priority 
more  likely. 

6  It  is  possible  that  there  existed,  earlier  than  our  cyclic  ro- 
mances, prose-rendering's  of  metrical  romances  other  than  Robert's,  but 
there  is  no  evidence  to  that  effect.  Grbber,  Grundriss,  II,  I,  1004, 
assumes  that  the  adaptation  of  Chretien's  Lancelot,  which  we  find  in 
the  prose  Lancelot,  was  originally  a  separate  work.  Brugger,  too, 
conjectures,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXI8,  276,  that  our  prose 
Lancelot  is  simply  an  adaptation  of  an  earlier  poem.  Neither  con- 
jecture, however,  is  supported  by  any  evidence. 

6  Cp.  pp.  144ff.,  above. 


Chapter  II. 
The  Prose  Cycles, 

There  are  two  great  cycles  of  Arthurian  romances  in  prose: 

(1)  That  which  is  known  as  the  Vulgate  or  Walter  Map  Cycle. 

(2)  That  which  is  known  as  the  Pseudo-Robert-de- Boron  Cycle. 
The  former  is  not  only  infinitely  more  important  than  the  latter, 
in  every  respect,  but  it  is  earlier  in  date,1  and  it  will,  therefore, 
first  claim  our  attention. 

The  Vulgate  Cycle  is  so  called,  because  it  became  the  most 
popular  redaction  of  the  romances  in  the  Middle  Ages,  almost 
completely  displacing  all  other  versions.  It  is  made  up  of  the 
five  great  romances,  L'Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  (or  Grand  St.  Graal, 
as  scholars  have  often  called  it,  although  this  title  is  not  found 
in  the  MSS.),  L'Estoire  de  Merlin  (prose  rendering  of  Robert's 
Merlin  plus  a  continuation),  Li  Limes  (L'Estoire)  de  Lancelot,  La 
Queste  del  Saint  Graal  and  La  Mort  Artu,  and  it  exists  either 
complete  or  in  part  in  a  large  number  of  MSS.  —  probably  not 
far  from  a  hundred.  The  name  of  Map  is,  also,  given  to  this 
cycle,  because  the  MSS.  regularly  ascribe  to  him  the  composition 
of  the  last  three  members  of  the  cycle.2  This  attribution,  how- 


1  The  contrary  opinion  which  has  been  entertained  by  some 
scholars  will  be  considered  below. 

2  The  facts  are  correctly  stated  by  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr. 
u.  Litt.,  XXIX ',  90,  note  47,  —  only,  as  regards  the  Queste  and 
Mort  Artu,  he  should  have  expressed  himself  more  strongly;  for  the 
ascription  occurs  regularly  in  the  MSS.  at  the  end  of  the  former  and 
at  both  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  the  latter.  The  few  exceptions 
are  evidently  due  to  an  effort  at  condensation  on  the  part  of  indi- 
vidual scribes.  At  the  end  of  the  Mort  Artu,  as  Brugger  observes, 
the  language  implies  that  Map  wrote,  also,  the  Lancelot,  e.  g.  Add. 
10294:  "Si  se  taist  ore  maistre  gautiers  map  de  lestoire  de  lancelot." 
The  ascription  occurs,  also,   sometimes  at  the  conclusion  of  the  Lan- 


The  Prose  Cycles  369 

ever,  is  manifestly  a  fiction  and  has  been  generally  rejected  by 
recent  scholars.3  The  following  considerations  prove  that  it  is  false: 

(1)  As  will  appear  from  our  analyses  of  the  romances  and  from 
the  discussion  below,  there  is  no  likelihood  that  even  the  Lancelot 
is  the  work  of  one  man,  much  less  three  romances  so  different  in 
power,  style,  and  tone  as  the  Lancelot,  Queste,  and  Mort  Artu. 

(2)  No  one  has  ever  claimed  for  the  Lancelot  an  earlier  date  than 
the  last  decade  of  the  twelfth  century  —  generally  it  is  dated 
later  —  but  even  in  1190  Map  was  a  man  of  about  fifty  years 
of  age4  and  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  unlikely  —  especially  under 
mediaeval  conditions  —  that  he  should  have  taken  to  the  writing 
of  romances  at  that  time  of  life.     (3)   Map  himself  expressly 

celot,  but  one  cannot  say  how  often,  until  further  collations  of  that 
branch  have  been  made.  —  For  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate  cycle  cp.  H.  0. 
Sommer,  Vulgate  Version  of  the  Arthurian  Romances,  I,  pp.  XXIII 
—XXXII.  For  the  Lancelot  MSS.  cp.  besides,  the  Vorivort  to 
G.  Brauner's  Der  altfranzosische  Prosaroman  von  Lancelot  del  Lac 
I  Branche.  Marburger  Beitrdge  zur  romanischen  Philologie,  Heft  II, 
and  for  those  of  the  Mort  Artu1  Bruce's  edition  of  that  romance, 
pp.  XII, ff.  In  the  last-named  list  the  following  MSS.  are  omitted:  122,  f. 
fr.  (B.  N.)  —  which,  like  MS.  342,  shows  an  unabridged  text  for  the 
passage,  pp.  102  ff.  (Bruce's  ed.)  —  and  the  Vatican  MS.  Palat.  1967. 
For  the  latter  (recently  discovered),  which  contains  only  the  Mort 
Artu,  cp.  Romania,  XLVI,  151  (1920).  F.  Lot  has  in  preparation 
a  special  work  on  the  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate  cycle. 

3  Cp.,  for  example,  Birch-Hirschfeld,  Sage  vom  Gral,  pp.  227 ff. 
(Leipzig,  1877),  G.  Paris,  Manuel,  62,  and  Sommer,  Zs.f.  rom.  Ph., 
XXXII,  336  (1908).  As  will  be  seen,  however,  below,  p.  371,  note  8, 
the  old  idea  of  Map's  connection  with  the  cycle  has  been  revived  in 
a  modified  form  by  certain  scholars. 

*  For  the  life  of  Map,  see  H.  L.  D.  Ward's  Catalogue  of  the 
Romances  in  the  Department  of  Manuscripts  in  the  British  Museum, 
I,  734 ff.  (1883),  and  the  article  on  him  in  the  Dictionary  of  Na- 
tional Biography.  These  are  better  than  the  fuller,  but  antiquated, 
life  by  Georg  Phillips,  Walter  Map :  Ein  Beitrag  zur  Geschichte 
Konig  Heinrichs  von  England  und  des  Lebens  an  seinem  Hofe, 
Sitzungsberichte  of  the  Vienna  Academy  of  Sciences,  Philos.  =  hist. 
Klasse,  X,  319  ff.  (1853).  Concerning  earlier  views  about  W.  Map 
and  the  Lancelot,  cp.  Graesse,  Lehrbnch  einer  allgemeinen  lAterar- 
geschichte,  BandII,AbtheilungIH,pp.l88/f.  Dresden  and  Leipzig  (1842). 


370  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

states  in  the  oft-quoted  words  preserved  by  Giraldus  Cambrensis3 
that  he  wrote  little  or  nothing.  According  to  Giraldus,  Map  said 
to  him:  "Multa,  magister  Giralde,  scripsisti,  et  multum  adhuc 
scribitis:  et  nos  multa  diximus.  Vos  scrip ta  dedistis  et  nos  verba." 
He  goes  on  to  say  that,  although  the  writings  of  Giraldus  were 
of  much  more  importance  than  his  (Map's)  words,  (i.  e.  spoken 
words),  yet.  because  his  words  were  in  the  vernacular,  which  every- 
body understood,  they  had  brought  him  greater  profit  than  all 
of  his  friend's  Latin.6 

The  implication  of  this  statement  of  Map's  is  borne  out  by 
the  little  that  we  know  of  his  life  and  activities,  his  only  authentic 
literary  production  being  the  De  Nugis  Curialium  (Courtiers" 
Triflings),  which  is  a  collection  of  tales  and  anecdotes  loosely 
thrown  together.  In  his  own  time  his  reputation  was  that  of 
a  wit  and  satirist,  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  possessed  even 

5  Hiberniae  Expugnatio,  Rolls  Series  edition  of  Giralduss  Works, 
V,  410  f.  (1867). 

6  P.  Paris,  Romans   de   la  Table  Ron^e,  I,  472,  tried  to   get 

around  the  plain  meaning   of  these  words  by  interpreting  scribere  as 

writing  in  Latin,  dicere  as  writing  in  the  vernacular,  but  there  is  no 

such    distinction    as   this    elsewhere.      Cp.    Birch-Hirschfeld ,    p.   229. 

Brugger,  too,  op.  cit.,  p.  93,  note  49,  denies  any  importance  to  these 

words  reported  by  Giraldus;    for,    as  a  matter  of  fact,    he  says,    Map 

did  write   the  De  Nugis,  and    he   may  have   counted   the    (supposed) 

Lancelot  romance  as   just  as   little   worth  mentioning   as   that   work. 

The  two  works,  however,  would  certainly  be  on  a  different  plane,  for 

the  De  Nugis,    as  said  above,    is  a   mere    disconnected    collection   of 

anecdotes  and  tales  and  there  is  no  likelihood  that  Map  ever  attempted 

to  make  it  generally  known,  seeing  that  it  exists  in  only  one  (fifteenth 

century)  MS.  Cp.  the  recent  and  best  edition  of  the  book  by  M.  R.  James 

(Oxford,  1914).    Indeed,  James  Hinton,  whose  study  of  the  De  Nugis, 

viz.,  "Walter  Map's  De  Nugis  Curialium,  its  plan  and  composition," 

PMLA,  XXXII,  81  ff.  (1917),    is  the  ablest    we  have,    concludes  that 

Map  left  this  book   in  the  condition    of   loose   fragments,    which  were 

put  together  by  some  one  else  after  his  death.    So,  too,  Henry  Bradley, 

English  Hist.  Review,  XXXII,  400  (1917). 

It  should  be  remembered,  moreover,  that  many  poems,  not  com- 
posed by  Map,  were  fathered  upon  him.  Cp.  the  volume  edited  by 
Thomas  Wright  for  the  Camden  Society,  Latin  Poems  commonly 
attributed  to  Walter  Map  (London,  1841). 


The  Prose  Cycles  371 

in  the  prime  of  his  life  the  power  to  carry  through  a  work  of 
sustained  invention,  such  as  is  exhibited  in  even  the  shortest  of 
the  three  romances  named  above.7  He  was  one  of  the  chief  men 
of  his  age  and  of  Welsh  origin,  and  it  was  doubtless  on  these 
accounts  that  some  scribe  or  redactor,  or  possibly  even  the  author 
of  some  part  of  the  cycle,  endeavored  to  win  the  prestige  of  his 
name  for  these  pseudo-Celtic  stories.8 


7  Similar  is  the  conclusion  of  Hinton,  op.  cit.  p.  142.  J.  Bar- 
doux  in  his  Paris  thesis,  De  Walterio  Mappio,  pp.  159ff.  (1900)  had 
argued  that  Map  supplied  the  material  for  the  romances  that  are  as- 
cribed to  him,  although  he  did  not  write-  them  himself. 

8  Ward,  p.  734  of  the  Catalogue  cited  above,  quotes  a  passage 
from  the  Ipomedon,  11.  7183  (edition  of  E.  Kolbing  and  E.  Koschwitz, 
Breslau,  1889),  of  Hue  de  Rotelande  to  prove  that  Map  really  com- 
posed a  romance,  which  he  conjectures  to  have  been  a  metrical  Lan- 
celot, of  which  our  Vulgate  Lancelot  is  the  prose  rendering.  Hue, 
who  wrote  between  1174  and  1191,  lived  near  Hereford,  with  which 
place  Map  was  connected  all  his  life,  and  he  presumably  knew  Map. 
Shortly  after  a  passage  based  on  the  three  tournament  motif  in  his 
Ipomedon,  (the  passage  ends  with  1.  6772)  Hue  excuses  himself  in 
a  jesting  manner  for  lying  and  says : 

"Sul  ne  sai  pas  de  mentir  lart, 
Walter  map  reset  ben  sa  part." 

Now  this  same  three  tournament  motif  is  found  in  the  prose 
Lancelot,  III,  214fl,  and  Ward  accordingly  concludes  that  Hue,  in 
writing  his  own  passage  on  this  motif,  had  in  mind  Map's  treatment 
of  the  same  subject  in  a  hypothetical  verse  original  of  the  prose  Lan- 
celot. Ward's  theory  has  been  taken  up  enthusiastically  by  Miss 
Weston,  Three  Days  Tournament,  pp.  6ff.  (London,  1902),  and  in 
her  article  on  Map  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica  (Eleventh  edition) 
—  also,  by  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.  XXIX1,  90 ff.,  (1905), 
both  of  whom  identify  this  hypothetical  verse  Lancelot  with  the  French 
original  of  Ulrich  von  Zatzikhoven's  Lanzelet. 

Hue's  allusion  to  Map,  as  we  have  seen,  occurs  in  a  jesting 
passage,  and  the  most  natural  interpretation  of  it  would  be  that  he 
was  simply  getting  off  a  pleasantry  at  his  friend's  expense.  Kolbing, 
p.  VI  of  his  edition,  suggests  that  the  allusion  may  be  to  Map's  Be 
Nugis.  The  three  days  tournament  motif  is  so  common  a  one  in 
folk-tales  and  romances  that  the  instances  in  the  Ipomedon  and  Lan- 
zelet need  not  be  directly  connected  with  each  other.  In  any  event, 
we  certainly  require  something  more  solid  than   the  proximity  of  this 


372  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 


motif  and  the  allusion  to  Map  in  the  Ipomedon  (they  are  really  se- 
parated by  about  460  lines)  to  justify  the  hypothesis  that  Map  wrote 
the  lost  French  poem  which  is  used  at  the  beginning  of  the  prose 
Lancelot.  Generally  speaking,  the  latter  owes  precious  little  to  this 
lost  French  original  of  the  Lanzelet  (cp.  RR,  X,  541,  note),  so  that, 
even  if  we  accepted  Brugger's  and  Miss  Weston's  hypothesis,  Map's 
contribution  to  the  evolution  of  the  cycle  would  be  extremely  slight. 

H.  Suchier,  Zs.  f  rom.  Ph.,  XVI,  273  (1892)  accepts  the  ge- 
nuineness of  the  ascription  of  the  cycle  to  Map  on  the  ground  that 
Manessier  (Potvin  VI,  158),  who,  in  his  opinion,  wrote  between 
1214  and  1220  —  so  shortly  after  Map's  death  —  had  already  be- 
fore him  the  Queste  with  the  same  conclusion  that  we  find  in  our 
extant  MSS.  about  the  original  narrative  of  the  Grail  quest  being  pre- 
served at  Salisbury.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Manessier  here  does  not 
mention  Map's  name,  though  it  stood  very  probably  in  his  MS.  of  the 
Queste.  If  it  did,  this  would  merely  prove  that  the  ascription  got 
into  the  MSS.  very  early,  not  that  it  was  genuine.  But  the  whole 
passage  in  question  at  the  end  of  the  Queste,  including  the  ascription 
to  Map,  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  a  fraud,  for  although  the  fact  has  been 
generally  overlooked  by  Arthurian  scholars,  there  was  never  any  mo- 
nastery at  Salisbury.  Cp.  Dugdale's  Monasticon  Anglicanum  and 
Abbot  Gasquet's  English  Monastic  Life,  p.  301  (London,  1904),  — 
the  list  of  English  religious  houses. 

Suchier's  views  were  adopted  by  E.  Wechssler,  Die  Sage  vom 
heiligen  Gral,  pp.  126ff.  (Halle,  1898). 

Birch-Hirschfeld,  Sage  vom  Gral,  pp.  234,  ff.,  it  should  be  ob- 
served, has  called  attention  to  the  improbability  of  Map's  always 
speaking  of  himself  in  the  third  person,  as  he  is  made  to  do  in  these 
ascriptions  which  we  find  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Vulgate  cycle.  He  sug- 
gests that  such  ascriptions  got  into  the  MSS.  of  that  cycle  through 
the  confusion  of  some  Meistre  Gautier  or  other  with  the  Walter,  arch- 
deacon of  Oxford,  who,  according  to  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  at  the 
end  of  his  Historia,  brought  the  (fictitious)  original  of  that  work  "ex 
Britannia".     But  this  is  not  likely. 

Of  as  little  value  as  the  passage  in  Manessier  are  the  oft-quoted 
passages  (cp.  for  instance,  Birch-Hirschfeld,  pp.  230f.)  from  the  pre- 
tended Helie  de  Borron,  viz.  in  the  Prologue  to  Guiron  le  Courtois 
and  in  the  Epilogue  to  the  Bret,  which  speak  of  Map,  "qui  fu  clers 
an  roy  Henri"  (Prologue),  as  the  author  of  "lestoire"  (Prologue)  or 
"lou  propre  livre"  (Epilogue)  "de  monseigneur  Lancelot  dou  Lac." 
There  is  no  ground,  however,  for  believing  that  this  self-styled  Helie 
de  Borron,  who  certainly  was  not  writing  earlier  than  1230,  knew 
any  more  about  the  matter  than  we  do.    He  was  simply  repeating  or 


The  Prose  Cycles  373 


drawing  inferences  from  the  ascriptions  in  MSS.  like  ours — particularly, 
MSS.  of  the  Queste  and  Mort  Artu.  This  explains  sufficiently  what 
C.  L.  Kingsford  in  the  article  on  Map  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography  regards  as  a  confirmation  of  the  correctness  of  Helie's 
statement,  viz.,  the  fact  that  he  does  not  speak  of  Map  as  archdeacon  — 
the  rank  which  Map  held  from  the  year  1197  on  —  but  as  a  simple 
clerk,  which  he  was  in  his  earlier  life  —  i.  e.  at  the  time  when  he 
was  most  likely  to  write  romances. 

The  MS.  of  the  Estoire  printed  by  Hucher  even  assigns,  III, 
504,  to  Map  a  share  in  that  romance.  Robert  wrote  it  with  the  "aid" 
of  Map! 


Chapter  III. 
The  Vulgate  Cycle. 

Referring  our  readers  to  Vol.  2  for  analyses  of  these  romances, 
we  shall  now  examine  the  successive  members  or  "branches"  of 
the  Vulgate  cycle  in  the  same  order  that  they  occur  in  our  cyc- 
lic MSS. 

1.  L'Estoire  del  Saint  Graal. 

The  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  presupposes  the  Lancelot  and 
the  Queste,1  and  there  are  apparently  allusions  in  it  even  to  the 

1  That  the  Queste  was  older  than  the  Estoire  was  the  opinion 
of  Birch-Hirschfeld,  pp.  55  ff.,  Nutt,  pp.  108ff.,  and  G.  Paris,  Manuel, 
§  60.  See,  too,  quite  recently  A.  Pauphilet,  in  his  review  of  Lot's 
Lancelot  in  Romania,  XLV,  524  ff.  Pauphilet  argues  convincingly, 
also,  that  the  Estoire  and  Queste  are  by  different  authors.  The  present 
writer  had  already  expressed  the  same  views,  MLN,  XXXIV,  397,  on 
both  points.  Some  scholars,  however,  hold  the  contrary  opinion:  viz., 
on  the  one  hand,  Heinzel,  pp.  125  ff.,  who  believed,  moreover,  that 
the  two  romances  were  by  different  authors,  and,  on  the  other,  E.  Wechssler, 
Sage  vom  heiligen  Graal,  p.  126  (Halle,  1898),  Miss  Weston,  Legend 
of  Sir  Lancelot,  p.  139  (London,  1901),  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr. 
u.  Litt.,  XXIX1,  89,  note  45,  and  99,  note  58  (1905),  and  Lot, 
Lancelot,  pp.  122ff.  (1918),  who  believe  that  they  have  the  same 
author.     On  these  matters  see,  still  further,  note  3,  below. 

If  the  four  scholars  last  named  were  right,  the  numerous  allusions 
in  the  Estoire  to  the  Queste  would  be  to  a  work  planned,  but  not 
yet  executed.  Heinzel  supposes  that  such  allusions  did  not  belong  to 
the  hypothetical  first  form  of  the  Estoire  which  Nutt,  pp.  75,  95, 
and  himself  assume.  (The  redaction  of  the  only  extant  form  of  the 
Estoire  he  places,  p.  125,  after  1223,  because  of  an  allusion  in  Hucher's 
text,  III,  655,  to  King  Philip  Augustus  as  dead.  The  allusion,  how- 
ever, may  well  be  a  late  scribe's  addition.)  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
apart  from  the  question  of  the  relative  dates  of  the  Estoire  and  Queste, 
there  are  some  circumstances  that  excite  suspicion  that  there  did  exist 
such  a  version.  For  example,  the  introduction  from  Robert  of  the 
Bron-Alain  Grail-keeper  group  towards  the  end  of  the  branch  (Sommer, 
I,  247),  when  the  whole  action  of  the  romance  up  to  that  point  had 
been  carried  on  by  an  entirely  different  set  of  Grail-keeper  characters 


The   Vulgate  Cycle  375 

Mort  Artu.2     In  his  Joseph,  Robert  de  Boron  had  given  an  ac- 


—  Joseph  excepted.  Observe,  too,  that,  according  to  the  extant  MSS. 
of  the  Estoire,  the  Grail  Winner  (Galahad)  had  no  connection  by 
descent  at  all  with  the  original  Grail-keeper  (Joseph  of  Arimathea). 
The  latter's  direct  descendant,  according  to  the  romance,  is  Yvain, 
who,  of  course,  nowhere  in  Arthurian  romance  has  any  real  connection 
with  the  Grail.  (When  Sommer,  side-note  to  p.  281,  also,  makes 
Gawain  a  direct  descendant  of  Joseph's  this  is  an  error).  It  is  hardly 
credible  that  such  was  the  case  in  the  original  authentic  text.  On 
all  this  see  Bruce,  RR,  IX,  253 f.  —  Note,  also,  that  according  to 
the  Estoire  I,  81,  the  Maimed  King,  who  is  to  be  cured  by  Galahad's 
coming,  is  destined  to  be  wounded  with  the  (Grail)  lance  —  a  con- 
ception which  harmonizes  with  Queste,  VI,  150,  where  this  king,  here 
called  Pellinor  in  some  MSS.,  enters  Solomon  s  ship,  despite  the  war- 
ning inscription,  draws  David's  (the  Grail)  sword,  and  at  the  same 
moment  is  pierced  through  the  thighs  with  a  lance.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  Estoire,  I,  290,  the  Maimed  King,  here  called  Pelleam 
(Pellehan),  got  his  wound  (with  what  weapon  is  Dot  said)  in  a  aba- 
taille  de  Rome",  the  author  (as  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  241,  has  suggested) 
having,  no  doubt,  in  mind  Chretien's  Fisher  King,  who  was  thus  woun- 
ded (11.  3471  ff.).  Lot,  loc.  cit.,  sees  no  difficulty  in  accepting  these 
conflicting  statements  as  the  blunder  of  a  single  author.  I  confess 
that  I  find  this  explanation  not  so  easy. 

It  may  be  remarked  in  passing,  that  the  names,  Pelleam  and 
Pellinor,  are  doubtless  really  the  same  name,  the  one  springing  from 
the  other  by  MS.  corruption.  See,  respectively,  Bruce's  "Pelles, 
Pellinor  and  Pellean  in  the  Old  French  Arthurian  Romances,"  MPh, 
XVI,  113ff.,  337ff.  (1918),  where  Pellinor  is  taken  to  be  the  original 
form,  and  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  242 ff.  (1918),  where  Pellehan  (variant 
of  Pelleam)  is  supposed  to  be  the  original. 

In  regard  to  the  question  under  discussion  it  should  be  observed 
that  in  two  of  the  extant  MSS.  of  the  Estoire  there  is  an  indis- 
putable interpolation,  viz.,  the  Grimaud  episode,  Hucher's  edition,  III, 
31  Iff.  This  failed  to  fix  itself  in  the  general  MS.  tradition,  but  it 
is  possible  that  some  earlier  changes  or  interpolations  were  more  for- 
tunate. Especially  open  to  suspicion  is  the  prose  fabliau,  I,  171  ff., 
concerning  a  woman's  deception  of  the  wise  physician,  Hippocrates. 
Apropos  of  this  episode,  Lot  himself  remarks,  p.  382,  note  2,  that 
the  text  of  the  Estoire  shows  "traces  de  remaniement." 

2  Cp.  references  to  this  branch  in  the  Estoire,  I,  226,  280,  283. 
To  be  sure,  the  Tower  of  Marvels,  I,  226,  does  not  occur  in  the 
Mort  Artu. 


376  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

count  of  the  early  history  of  the  Grail  that  is  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  spirit  of  mediaeval  Christian  legend  and  doctrine.  In 
this  work,  however,  neither  Lancelot  nor  his  ancestors  nor  his 
posterity  had  been  brought  into  any  sort  of  connection  with  the 
Grail,  as,  indeed,  they  are  not  mentioned  in  the  whole  poem.  But 
just  as  in  the  Queste  such  a  connection  is  established  for  the  quest 
of  the  Grail  through  the  supplanting  of  Perceval,  the  original 
Grail  Winner,  by  Lancelot's  son,  Galahad,  so  for  the  early  history 
of  the  Grail  this  connection  is  also  established  in  the  Estoire 
through  the  linking  of  the  vessel's  fate  in  its  earlier  wanderings 
with  that  of  the  ancestors  of  Lancelot  and  his  son.  Now,  whether 
we  accept  the  theory  of  some  scholars  that  these  intimately  con- 
nected branches,  the  Estoire  and  Queste,  were  the  work  of  the 
same  hand3  or  not,  it  seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  latter 


8  For  arguments  against  identity  of  authorship,  see  Birch-Hirsch- 
feld,  pp.  58  ff.,  Nutt,  pp.  81,  108  f.,  and  Pauphilet,  op.  cit,  pp.  522  ff. 

Birch-Hirschfeld  cites  the  fullness  with  which  in  the  Queste 
matters  related  in  the  Estoire  are  recapitulated  as  tending  to  prove 
that  the  two  were  by  different  hands.  It  is  true  that  we  do  have 
incidents  in  the  former  retold  in  the  latter  rather  fully  (cp.  respec- 
tively, VI,  24ff.  with  I,  21  ff.,  VI,  54f.  with  I,  216,  VI,  60ff.  with  I, 
231  ff.),  and,  in  at  least  one  case,  a  long  passage  copied  virtually 
verbatim  (cp.  VI,  151,  1.  11—161,  1.  22  with  I,  124,  1.  6—137,  1.  3). 
To  a  single  author,  says  the  German  scholar,  a  mere  allusion  to  the 
other  romance  would  have  seemed  sufficient.  One  might  object  to  this, 
with  some  plausibility,  that,  after  all,  the  two  romances  were  separate 
works  and  that  the  author  could  not  count  on  both  of  them  being  at 
the  same  time  in  the  hands  of  his  readers,  so  that  he  may  have  in- 
serted in  the  two  romances  such  passages  by  way  of  supplying  the 
necessary  thread  of  connection.  In  my  own  opinion,  however,  these 
insertions  are  much  more  likely  to  have  been  the  work  of  the  redactors 
of  the  cycle.  It  may  be  remarked,  furthermore,  that  if  such  redactors 
did  undertake  to  interpolate  passages  of  this  kind,  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  they  made  other  adjustments  of  the  two  romances  to 
each  other  —  more  particularly,  of  the  Queste  to  the  Estoire. 

Birch-Hirschfeld,  also,  cites  supposed  contradictions  between  the 
two  branches  as  proving  that  they  were  from  different  hands.  These, 
it  is  true,  have,  for  the  most  part,  been  reasonably  explained  away  by 
Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  80  ff.  Such  inconsistencies,  however,  as  the  following 
seem,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  very  singular,  under  the  theory  of  single 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  377 

was  first  composed.  The  great  departure  in  Grail  tradition  which 
distinguishes  the  two  romances  is  the  substitution  of  the  chaste  Gala- 
had for  the  unchaste  Perceval  of  Chretien  and  his  earlier  continua- 
tors  as  the  Grail  Winner.  But  the  ascetic  who  first  hit  upon 
the  idea  of  this  substitution  would  surely  have  proceeded  forth- 
with to  endow  his  new  conception  with  life  —  to  create  his  new 
hero  and  put  him  in  action  —  instead  of  first  composing  a  long> 
romance  (the  Estoire)  about  this  hero's  ancestors  and  their  re- 


authorship:  (1)  In  the  Estoire,  I,  247,  the  vacant  seat  at  the  Grail 
table  is  reserved  for  Christ  or  for  some  one  whom  he  will  send  to 
fill  it,  and  Moys  (a  relative  of  Josephe's,  according  to  I,  248),  who 
tries  to  occupy  it,  is  snatched  away  by  fiery  hands;  in  the  Queste, 
VI,  55,  this  seat  is  said  to  be  reserved  for  Josephe,  and  a  rebellious 
relative  (unnamed)  of  his,  who  tries  to  occupy  it,  is  swallowed  up  by 
the  earth.  (2)  In  the  Estoire  (I,  247)  the  vacant  seat  is  at  the  Grail 
table;  in  the  Queste  (VI,  5,  7)  at  the  Round  Table. 

In  the  present  writer's  opinion,  however,  Pauphilet,  loc.  cit.  has 
furnished  a  conclusive  argument  against  the  theory  of  identical  author- 
ship, by  pointing  out  essential  differences  of  conception  between  the 
two  in  respect  to  various  passages  not  noted  by  Birch-Hirschfeld,  in- 
cluding those  in  the  respective  romances  (I,  40,  VI,  190,  578)  which 
reflect  the  conflicting  views  in  contemporary  theology  as  to  the  point  in 
the  sacramental  service  when  the  miracle  of  transubstantiation  took  place. 

In  conclusion,  with  regard  to  these  questions  of  identical  authorship 
and  relative  date,  I  wish  to  add  the  following:  If  the  Bron- Alain 
group  really  belonged  to  the  Estoire  from  the  beginning  —  which,  to 
be  sure,  is  very  doubtful  —  and  is  not  a  later  addition,  it  would  seem 
that  considerable  force  should  be  credited  to  Nutt's  argument  that,  if 
the  Queste  were  later  than  the  Estoiref  some  mention  would  have 
been  made  of  this  group  in  it.  Again,  such  an  obscure  allusion  as 
that  to  the  maiming  of  the  Maimed  King  by  the  lance  in  the  Estoire, 
I,  81,  seems  much  more  naturally  interpreted  as  an  allusion  to  an 
incident  already  related  (Queste,  VI,  150)  than  to  one  that  the  author 
merely  intended  to  write  about.  If  the  latter  supposition  is  true,  he 
took  his  time  about  executing  his  intention;  for,  leaving  out  of  account 
the  intervening  branches,  I,  81  and  VI,  150  are  separated  by  up- 
wards of  400  quarto  pages. 

Although  generally  similar,  moreover,  in  style,  the  differences 
noted  above,  between  the  two  works  in  this  respect  should  be  observed. 
The  Queste  is  compact  and  austere,  the  Estoire  runs  easily  into  the 
romantic  and  the  sensational. 


378  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

lation  to  the  early  history  of  the  Grail  —  a  romance,  indeed, 
half  as  long  again  as  that  which  tells  the  hero's  own  story.4  Just 
as  in  the  chansons  de  geste  the  poets  naturally  began  by  celebrating 
the  great  deeds  of  their  heroes,  performed  in  the  full  vigor  of 
maturity  —  the  deeds  that  had  given  these  characters  their  renown 
—  and  only  later  (the  original  author,  or  more  frequently,  another), 
if  occasion  arose,  exploited  the  curiosity  which  the  narration  of 
such  feats  of  arms  may  liave  awakened  among  their  hearers  or 
readers  by  presenting,  still  further,  the  story  of  the  enfances 
(achievements  of  early  j^outh)  of  the  heroes  in  question,  so,  doubt- 
less, it  was  with  the  Grail.  First  would  come  the  narrative  of 
the  holy  vessel,  where  its  quest  constituted  the  highest  adventuro 
that  could  enlist  both  the  bodily  and  the  spiritual  energies  of  the 
best  knights  of  Arthur's  court;  in  the  second  line  would  come 
the  history  of  its  origins  and  early  fortunes.  Thus  everything 
in  the  Estoire  would  be  conditional  on  the  conceptions  and  narra- 
tive of  the  Queste.  But  when  the  two  romances  were  brought 
into  intimate  manuscript  union,  as  members  of  the  Vulgate  cycle, 
such  insertions  would  have  to  be  made  in  the  Queste  by  the  as- 
semblers as  would  harmonize  it  with  the  new  inventions  con- 
cerning the  early  history  of  the  Grail  (the  Estoire).  Similar  in: 
sertions  were  certainly  made  in  the  original  Lancelot  after  the 


4  Lot,  who  believes  that  the  Estoire  and  the  Queste  are  by  the 
same  man  and  that  the  Queste  was  the  later  of  the  two  has  the 
following  theory  (pp.  122 ff.)  concerning  the  composition  of  the  Estoire: 

Owing  to  certain  allusions  to  Perceval  as  the  Grail  Winner  in 
the  early  part  of  the  Lancelot  (cp.  Part  IV,  below),  lie  conjectures 
that  the  author  of  the  Lancelot-Grail  corpus  had  written  a  conside- 
table  portion  (approximately,  a  third)  of  the  Lancelot  before  it  occurred 
to  him  to  deprive  Perceval  of  that  honor  in  favor  of  a  new  character, 
Galahad.  He  then  laid  aside  the  Lancelot ,  went  back  and  composed 
the  Estoire,  returned  again  to  the  Lancelot,  completed  it  and  composed 
thereafter,  in  succession,  the  Queste  and  the  Mort  Artu.  For  criticism 
of  this  theory  see  Bruce,  RR.  X,  385  f.  and  Pauphilet,  Romania, 
XLV,  521  f.  The  enormous  length  of  these  romances,  besides,  should 
be  remembered;  but,  even  in  the  case  of  shorter  compositions,  can 
anything-  parallel  to  the  procedure  which  Lot  attributes  to  his  hypo- 
thetical author  be  found  anywhere  in  the  world's  literature? 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  379 

composition  of  the  Grail  romances  of  the  cycle,  so  that  there  is 
nothing  arbitrary  in  assuming  modifications  of  this  kind  in  the 
Quest e.5 

Looking,  however,  exclusively  at  the  Estoire  for  the  present, 
the  author  takes  Robert's  account  of  the  early  history  of  the  Grail 
as  the  basis  of  his  romance,  but  he  modifies  his  source  so  as  to 
make  it  conform  to  the  new  conceptions  throughout,  keeping  con- 
stantly in  mind,  above  all,  the  new  hero  (Galahad)  and  the  as- 
cetic ideal  which  that  character  embodies.  Just  as  this  ascetic 
ideal,  however,  required  a  new  champion  as  the  knight  of  the 
Grail  quest,  so  it  required  a  new  and  stricter  representative  of 
the  church  as  the  guardian  and  minister  of  the  Grail  in  its  early 
wanderings  in  the  Orient  and  in  Great  Britain.  The  tone  of 
Robert's  poem  is  profoundly  religious,  but  to  an  ecclesiastic  with 
strongly  orthodox  and  ascetic  views,  such  as  our  author  evidently 
held,  there  was  a  flaw  even  in  Robert's  conception  of  the  first 
Grail- keeper  (Joseph  of  Arimathea):  He  did  not  fulfill  the  con- 
dition of  celibacy  which  was  required  by  the  mediaeval  church 
of  the  ministers  of  its  sacraments  (symbolized  by  the  Grail).6 
Accordingly,  just  as  in  the  Queste  the  Perceval  of  Chretien  and 
his  continuators  has  to  yield  the  first  place  to  Galahad,  so  in 
the  Estoire  Robert's  Joseph  has  to  yield  the  first  place  to  a  new 
creation,  Josephe(s),  who  fulfilled  this  necessary  condition.  Never- 


6  I  am  postulating  here,  of  course,  contrary  to  Lot,  that  the  Lan- 
celot-Grail corpus  is  not  the  work  of  one  author.  For  the  weaknesses 
of  Lot's  theory  see  Part  IV,  below,  and  RB,  X,  377 ff.  —  also, 
A.  Pauphilet,  Romania,  XLV,  521  ff. 

*  This  is  obviously  the  reason  why  the  new  character,  Josephe(s), 
was  created.  Similar  is  the  opinion  expressed  by  Lot,  Lancelot, 
p.  205.  There  is  no  reason,  therefore,  to  imagine  with  Heinzel, 
pp.  105  ff..  that  already  in  Christian  legend,  before  the  composition  of 
the  Grail  romances,  Joseph  had  been  given  a  son,  Josephe,  owing, 
in  some  way,  to  a  confusion,  originally,  of  the  former  with  the  historian, 
Josephus.  So,  too,  Brugger,  who  derives  the  Estoire  from  the  Per- 
lesvaus,  discusses,  Zs.f.frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXIX1,  1001,  the  creation 
of  the  character,  Josephe,  as  if  it  were  a  great  problem.  It  might 
be,  if  the  Estoire  really  were  dependent  on  the  Perlesvaus,  but  on 
that  subject  see  Part  IV,  below. 


380  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

theless,  it  is  to  be  noted,  that  in  neither  case  is  the  previous  hero 
totally  discarded;  he  is  merely  subordinated  to  the  new  one.7  In 
the  case  of  the  Estoire,  moreover,  the  author  softens  the  change 
by  making  the  new  hero  the  son  of  the  old  and  by  conferring 
on  this  son  (Josephe)  the  father's  name,  only  in  a  slightly  variant 
form.8 

In  the  new  romance,  as  in  Robert's  Joseph,  the  identification 
of  the  Grail  with  a  vessel  of  the  Eucharistic  service  is  complete  — 
except  that,  through  an  inopportune  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
the  true  meaning  of  the  word,  graal  (grail),  was  a  kind  of  dish, 
the  author  rejects  Robert's  more  harmonious  conception  and  makes 
this  vessel  the  dish,9  not  the  chalice  of  the  Last  Supper.  Since 
our  Lord,  himself,  however,  had  declared  that  the  chalice  con- 
tained his  blood,  this  circumstance,  apart  from  the  natural  fitness 
of  that  vessel  for  the  purpose,  had  pointed  to  it  rather  than  to 
the  dish  as  the  proper  receptacle  for  the  blood  which  flowed  from 
his  wounds  on  the  day  of  his  crucifixion.  Nevertheless,  in  other 
respects,  the  choice  between  the  two  vessels  was  immaterial,  for 
the  ineffable  sanctity  that  pertained  to  the  Grail  was  due  to  the 
holy  blood,  itself,  and  not  to  the  containing  vessel.  Furthermore, 
it  is  as  a  general  symbol  of  the  Eucharistic  mysteries  and  doc- 
trines that  the  Grail  is  clothed  with  majesty  and  power.10  Con- 
sequently, there  is  nothing  inconsistent  when  we  find  it  side  by 


7  Even  in  his  subordinate  role,  however,  Perceval  is  represented 
in  the  Queste  as  perfectly  chaste,  to  suit  the  spirit  of  that  romance. 

8  On     these    names,    derived,    respectively,    from    Joseph    and 
Josephus,  cp.  Perlesvaus  section,  Part  IV,  below. 

9  Cp.  I,  13,  "lescuele  en  le  quele  li  fiex  dieu  auoit  niangiet. 
This  term,  escuele,  which  is  applied  generally  to  the  Grail  in  this 
text  (cp.  I,  14,  18,  19,  et  passim),  often  designates  a  bowl  or  similar 
vessel.  For  example,  it  was  commonly  used  in  the  Middle  Ages  of 
the  receptacle  in  which  beggars  received  the  food  that  was  given  to 
them.  On  the  other  hand,  it,  also,  meant  sometimes  simply  dish,  as 
in  Pseudo-Wauchier's  description  of  the  dinner  at  the  Grail  castle, 
Potvin,  III,  367. 

10  This  general  symbolism,  no  doubt,  encouraged  vagueness  in  the 
description  of  the  Grail. 


The   Vulyate  Cycle  381 

side  with  actual  individual  vessels  that  are  used  in  the  celebration 
of  the  mass.11 

The  wanderings  of  the  Grail  company  in  Robert's  poem,  so 
obviously  modelled  after  those  of  the  children  of  Israel  in  the 
wilderness,  in  the  book  of  Exodus,  suggested  the  idea  of  the  ark 
in  which  our  author  represents  the  sacred  vessel  to  have  been  borne 
about.12  But  this  ark,  too.  like  everything  in  the  narrative,  has 
its  symbolical  meaning.  It  is  Holy  Church  which  carries  in  her 
bosom  the  fundamental  mysteries  of  the  true  faith. 

For  our  author,  as  for  Pseudo-Wauchier,13  and  Wauchier,14 
the  bleeding  lance  is  the  lance  with  which  the  side  of  our  Lord 
was  pieroed  whilst  he  hung  on  the  cross.  The  blood,  then,  which 
drips  from  its  point,  is  the  blood  of  the  Savior,  and  it,  accord- 
ingly, possesses,  in  a  miraculous  degree,  the  power  of  healing.15 
On  the  other  hand,  Chretien,  another  of  his  sources,  had  ascribed 
to  this  same  lance  a  terribly  destructive  power:  the  whole  king- 
dom of  Logres  was  one  day  to  be  destroyed  by  it.16  Consequently, 
according  to  our  author's  conception,  it  is  an  instrument  of  wrath 


11  Cp.  J,  33,  41.  Heinzel,  p.  132,  cites  these  passages  as  pro- 
ving that,  owing  to  orthodox  hesitations,  the  author  of  the  Estoire, 
after  all,  did  keep  the  Grail  worship  separate  from  the  mass.  The 
explanation,  however,  which  I  have  given  in  the  text  is,  I  believe, 
the  true  one.  On  the  other  hand,  when  at  the  end  of  the  Queste, 
VI,  190,  Christ,  himself,  and  not  a  mortal,  conducts  the  sacramental 
service,  the  questers  receive  "la  haute  viande"  direct  from  the  Grail. 

12  I,  20f.,  30ff.  et  passim. 
18  Potvin,  IV,  I,  4f. 

14  Ibid.  V.  143ff. 

15  Estoire,  I,  80 f.  So,  too,  in  Queste,  VI,  191,  the  restoration 
of  Nascien's  sight,  in  the  first  of  these  passages,  with  blood  that  drops 
from  the  lance,  corresponds  exactly  to  the  Longinus  legend.  Cp.  Miss 
R.  J.  Peebles,  Legend  of  Longinus,  pp.  21,  48  ff.,   194. 

16  Potvin,  II,  252,  Baist's  ed.,  11.  6129ff.  The  Montpellier  MS. 
(cp.  Potvin,  loc.  cit.),  to  be  sure,  leaves  out  the  statement  about  the 
destruction  which  the  lance  is  fated  to  cause  and  says  "La  pes  sera 
par  ceste  lance,"  but  this  is,  no  doubt,  an  unauthorized  change  of 
the  true  text.  Certainly  Pseudo-Wauchier  had  the  commoner  reading 
before  him,  when  he  penned  11.  20288 ff.,  although  he  attributes  there 
this  destructive  power  to  the  sword. 


382  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

as  well  as  of  beneficence.17  By  thus  combining  both  of  the  previous 
accounts,  he  is  able  to  enhance  greatly  the  interest  of  this  weapon 
as  a  symbol  of  the  two-fold  attributes  of  our  Lord  —  first,  his 
power  to  heal  and  save,  secondly,  his  power  to  inflict  vengeance 
on  those  who  disobey  his  will.  The  Bible  furnished  illustrations 
enough  of  both  sides  of  the  divine  nature,  and  there  was  besides, 
the  well-known  story  of  the  spear  of  Achilles18  to  support  our 
author  in  ascribing  to  the  Grail  lance  this  union  of  apparently 
contradictory  qualities. 

One  would  imagine  from  the  "dread  voice"  of  the  angel  in 
his  words  of  thunder,  spoken  to  Josephe,  after  the  blood  from 
the  mystical  weapon  had  healed  the  latter' s  wound  and  restored 
Nascien's  sight,19  that  the  lance  was  destined  to  play  a  part  of 
the  highest  importance  in  the  story.  From  this  time  on,  the 
heavenly  messenger  declares,  not  a  drop  of  blood  will  fall  from 
the  lance  until  the  Grail  adventures  shall  commence  in  the  land 


17 


Op.  cit.  p.  192,  Miss  Peebles  has  cited  from  the  fifteenth 
century  Meditation  of  the  Five  Wounds  a  passage  in  which  the 
terribleness  of  the  spear  is  emphasized  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
saving  power  of  the  blood,  which  gushed  forth  from  the  wound  that 
it  made. 

Lot,  p.  233,  has  rightly  explained  these  "contradictions"  as  due 
to  the  writer's  use  of  Chretien  and  Pseudo-Wauchier,  respectively. 
To  my  mind,  however,  he  exaggerates  their  effect  on  the  Grail  ro- 
mances of  the  Vulgate  cycle.  To  our  author  (or  authors),  for  the 
reasons  given  in  the  text  above,  I  do  not  believe  that  they  seemed 
to  be  real  contradictions. 

18  The  lance  of  Achilles  could  both  wound  and  heal.  Heinzel, 
p.  131.  has  suggested  the  influence  of  this  story.  He  cites,  besides, 
as  parallels,  Wolfram's  Parzival,  490,  13ff.  and  Li  Chevaliers  as 
deus  Espees,  1.  10692. 

19  J,  80  f.  The  MS.  followed  by  Sommer  is  very  corrupt  at  the 
beginning  of  the  angel's  speech  —  so  much  so,  indeed,  that  Sommer 
in  his  marginal  note,  interpreting  the  text  of  this  MS.,  makes  Josephe 
the  speaker  and  Nascien  the  hearer.  It  is  really,  however,  the  angel 
who  is  speaking  to  Josephe.  Hucher's  text,  IT,  310  ff.,  is  much  better, 
although  there  are  some  corruptions  here,  also,  in  the  case  of  indi- 
vidual words. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  383 

(Great  Britain)  whither  God  is  to  lead  Nascien.  Then  it  will 
bleed  again  and  the  marvels  which  this  bleeding  is  to  inaugurate 
will  be  so  great  and  awful  that  all  people  will  be  filled  with  fear. 
At  that  time  the  good  knights  will  undertake  feats  of  earthly 
chivalry,  in  order  that  they  may  know  the  marvels  of  the  Grail 
and  the  lance.  Only  one  man  will  ever  be  struck  by  the  lance  — 
namely,  a  descendant  of  Nascien.20  This  person  will  be  a  king 
(the  Maimed  King)  —  "the  last  of  the  good."  He  will  be  pierced 
through  the  thighs  by  the  lance  and  will  not  be  cured  until  the 
wonders  of  the  Grail  shall  have  been  revealed  to  him  who  is  to 
be  full  of  virtues  (Galahad)  —  the  last  of  Nascien's  lineage. 
Just  as  Nascien  was  the  first  to  behold  these  wonders,  so  the 
last  to  do  so  will  be  the  last  of  his  lineage.  Christ  has  determined 
to  execute  vengeance  on  Nascien  and  his  descendant  (the  Maimed 
King),  in  order  that  they  may  testify  that,  when  he  was  on  the 
cross,  his  death  was  sought  through  the  lance  by  the  wicked  Jews. 
As  many  days  as  Joseph  bore  the  lance-head  in  his  thigh, 
over  so  many  years  will  the  Grail  adventures  extend  in  the  land 
(Great  Britain)  whither  God  will  take  Nascien.21 

After  all  this  pother,  however,  which  owes  its  inspiration, 
doubtless,  to  the  prophetic  speeches  of  various  angels  in  the  Book 
of  Revelation,  the  lance  is  henceforth  dropped  from  the  Estoire, 


20  This  is  an  error,  however,  for  Galahad  was  descended  from 
Nascien  through  his  father  (Lancelot),  not  through  his  mother  (member 
of  the  Grail  family,  to  which  the  Maimed  King  belonged).    Cp.  I,  293. 

21  As  Lot,  Lancelot ,  p.  234,  has  observed,  the  author  here  limits 
to  twelve  years  the  flow  of  blood  from  the  spear,  which,  according 
to  his  source,  Pseudo-Wauchier  (Potvin,  IV,  4),  would  continue  forever. 
In  Lot's  opinion,  the  author  made  the  change,  because  the  idea  of 
the  Savior's  blood  flowing  eternally  seemed  to  him  an  irreverence.  It 
strikes  me,  however,  that  the  writer's  love  of  symbolism  is  more  likely 
to  have  been  the  cause.  Perhaps,  after  all,  he  may  have  forgotten, 
for  the  moment,  Pseudo-Wauchier 's  idea  on  the  subject  and  invented 
this  detail  for  the  nonce.  In  any  event,  he  forgot  the  limitation  sub- 
sequently, for  nowhere  else  in  the  Estoire  (or  Queste)  is  it  implied 
that  the  Grail  adventures  lasted  twelve  years.  A  part  of  Galahad's 
quest  lasted  five  years  (Queste,  VI,  186 f.),  but  we  know  nothing  more. 


384  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

save  for  one  casual  allusion,22  and  when  it  reappears  in  the  Queste, 
it  does  not  fill  at  all  the  function  which  is  predicated  for  it  in 
the  angel's  speech.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  not  mentioned  until 
most  of  the  Grail  adventures  are  over  and  the  narrative  of  the 
stroke  by  which  it  renders  the  Maimed  King  maimed  is  merely 
incidental  and  of  the  tamest  kind.23  At  the  end  of  the  Queste 
it  appears  again  (p.  189),  along  with  the  Grail,  in  the  mass  which 
the  spirit  of  Josephe  holds  for  the  questers,  and,  on  the  com- 
pletion of  this  service  (p.  191),  Galahad,  in  fulfillment  of  the 
angel's  prophecy,  heals  the  Maimed  King  with  blood  from  the 
sacred  weapon.  Finally  (p.  198).  just  after  Galahad's  decease, 
a  celestial  hand,  in  the  sight  of  Bohort  and  Perceval,  snatches 
both  Grail  and  lance  up  to  heaven,  since  when,  as  the  author  of 
the  Queste  leaves  us  to  understand,  it,  like  the  Grail,  has  been 
seen  no  more  by  mortal  eyes. 

As  we  have  seen  above,  "the  sword  of  the  strange  hangings", 
which  is  found  already  in  Chretien's  Perceval  (11.  4668ff.),  though 
hardly  as  a  Grail  relic  in  thig  poem,  had  increased  immensely  in 
importance  in  the  continuations  to  that  work.  In  the  same  spirit 
the  author  of  the  Estoire  has  thrown  the  greatest  lustre  about 
it  (pp.  121  f.),  so  that,  at  the  same  time  that  it  duplicates,  in  a 
measure,  the  functions  of  the  lance,  it  eclipses  here  that  relic  more 
than  ever  in  the  economy  of  the  Grail  story.  In  the  execution 
of  his  design  to  connect  everything  in  his  narrative  with  Christian 
history  and  doctrine,  the  writer  identifies  (pp.  133  f.)  this  sword, 
so  obscure  in  its  origin,  with  the  sword  of  David,  who  was,  on 

22  I,  107,  where,  in  an  allusion  to  the  wound  of  Joseph  by  the 
lance  (p.  77),  the  weapon  is  called  "la  lanche  vengeresce."  The  only 
passages  in  the  Estoire  where  the  Grail  lance  is  mentioned  are  I, 
32  f.  (it  is  here  enumerated  among  the  relics  that  are  carried  in  the 
ark  with  the  Grail),  77 — 81  (wounding  and  healing  of  Joseph,  re- 
storation of  Nascien's  sight,  and  angel's  prophecy),  107  (allusion  to 
pp.  77ff.). 

*3  VI,  150.  The  Maimed  King,  although  usually  nameless  in 
the  Vulgate  cycle,  is  here  called  Pellinor  in  some  MSS.  Cp.  Sommer, 
loc.  cit.  This  name,  however,  was  most  probably  introduced  late  into 
the  manuscript  tradition  from  the  Vulgate  Merlin  continuation.  See 
Bruce,  MPh.,  XVI,  337  ff. 


Tlie  Vulgate  Cycle  385 

the  human  side,  the  greatest  of  the  progenitors  of  Christ.  Through 
the  Dolorous  Stroke  (p.  290),  when  King  Brulan(s),  newly  con- 
verted to  Christianity,  slew  Lambor,  the  sainted  Grail  King,  with 
his  sword,  it  caused  a  magical  blight  to  fall  on  the  latter's  land 
(Terre  Foraine  or  Logres)24  and  provoked  such  wars  of  retaliation 
against  the  realm  (Gales- Wales)  of  the  former  that  the  two  king- 
doms oame  to  be  known  as  the  Waste  Land  (Terre  Gaste).  Thus, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  bleeding  lance,  the  sword  is  said  to  bring  on 
a  series  of  afflictions,  which,  we  may  suppose,  were  not  to  cease 
until  the  coming  of  Galahad.  Here  again,  however,  having  im- 
parted to  the  mysterious  weapon  the  prestige  of  marvels  to  come, 
the  author  drops  the  subject  and  says  nothing  more  of  these  marvels. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  lance,  the  sword  does  not  appear  again  in 
the  two  Grail  romances  until  towards  the  end  of  the  Queste  (pp. 
161  ff.)  —  in  this  instance,  when  Galahad  enters  Solomon's  ship. 
Here,  as  a  symbol  of  the  redemption  of  mankind  by  the  Virgin 
Mary  from  the  curse  which  Eve's  sin  brought  upon  our  race,  Per- 
ceval's sister  replaces  with  her  beautiful  hair  the  cheap  hangings 
of  tow  which  Solomon's  wife  had  attached  to  the  sword  and  girds 
the  weapon  upon  Galahad.25  From  that  point  on,  the  sword  is 
mentioned  incidentally  only  a  few  times. 


2i  According  to  Pseudo-Wauchier,  Potvin,  IV,  5,  such  was  the 
nature  of  the  blight  that  rested  upon  the  Grail  country  after  the  stroke 
of  the  Grail  sword.  Our  author  is  here  borrowing  from  this  passage 
in  Pseudo-Wauchier,  just  as,  in  making  the  calamities  which  afflict 
Wales  the  ordinary  ones  of  war,  he  is  borrowing  from  Chretien,  11. 
4640  ff.  (describing  the  disasters  that  ensued  from  the  wounding  of 
the  Fisher  King). 

36  In  Chretiens  Perceval,  11.  3622 ff.,  the  sword  forged  by  Tre- 
buchet  was  destined  to  fail  the  person  who  handled  it  in  his  need. 
The  author  of  the  Queste,  VI,  149,  had  that  passage  in  mind  when 
he  makes  David's  sword  break  in  Nascien's  hands  (p.  149),  because 
of  his  unworthiness,  although  the  pure  Mordrain  is  able  to  unite  the 
pieces  again. 

David's  sword,  it  should  be  remarked,  is  duplicated  in  the  sword 
with  which  the  seneschal  of  Argon  wounds  Joseph  in  the  Estoire, 
I,  256.  Galahad  joins  the  pieces  of  this  sword  together  again  in  the 
Queste,  VI,  188. 


386  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph,  as  we  have  already  noted,  is  the 
main  source  of  the  Estoire.  To  that  poem  our  author  owes  his 
conception  of  the  origin  and  early  history  of  the  Grail  and  of 
its  connection  with  Joseph  of  Arimathea  —  also,  of  Joseph's  pro- 
selytizing activities  and  of  his  wanderings  with  the  Grail  and 
the  Grail  company  in  Eastern  lands  —  finally,  of  the  transference 
of  the  Grail  to  the  West  and  of  the  conversion  of  Britain  to 
Christianity  by  Joseph,  Josephe  and  Celidoine.26  It  will  be 
evident,  however,  from  the  analysis  of  the  Estoire,  given  below, 
that  its  author  modified,  according  to  his  own  pleasure,  the 
materials  which  were  offered  to  him  by  his  source  and  that 
he,  still  further,  filled  out  Robert's  framework  with  elements  that 
were  derived  from  a  great  variety  of  extraneous  sources.  Inasmuch 
as  Robert,  himself,  moved  so  completely  in  an  atmosphere  of 
Christian  legend,  it  is  natural  that  in  the  sources  of  his  follower 
legendary  materials  should,  next  to  the  Joseph,  have  occupied  the 
first  place.  It  is  very  questionable,  however,  whether  our  author 
had  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  apocryphal  narratives  concern- 
ing the  careers  of  the  primitive  apostles  after  the  ascension  of 
Christ,  such  as  has  been  attributed  to  him.27    These  constituted,  of 


36  It  will  be  observed  that  these  elements  constitute  the  fun- 
damental framework  of  the  Estoire.  There  are,  besides,  of  course, 
other  borrowings  from  the  Joseph.  Among  them  is  the  Grail  group 
—  Bron,  Alain,  etc.,  —  first  introduced  towards  the  end  of  the 
Estoire.  As  I  have  said  above,  I  do  not  feel  quite  sure  that  this 
group  is  not  a  late  addition  to  the  romance. 

2'  Heinzel,  pp.  136ff.  maintains  that  (1)  the  Latin  legend  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Simon  und  Judas,  and  (2)  the  Passio  Mat- 
thaei  are  sources  of  the  account  of  the  conversion  of  Evelach  and 
his  kingdom,  I,  21  ff.,  —  moreover,  that  our  author  had  access  to 
historical  narratives  (now  uuascertainable)  of  the  events  with  which 
the  above-named  legends  are  connected.  For  the  texts  of  the  legends 
just  indicated  cp.  J.  A.  Fabricius,  Codex  Apocryphus  Novi  Testa- 
ment^ I,  608ff.,  636ff.,  (2  vols.,  Hamburg,  1719),  respectively.  For 
the  historical  narratives  referred  to,  see  the  parallels  from  Persian 
and  Abyssinian  history  which  Heinzel,  pp.  137,  139,  has  assembled. 
Brugger,  Zs.  f  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX  l,  100,  accepts  Heinzel's  views. 
So,  too,  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  206,  who  thinks,  however,  that  the  author 


The   Vulgate  Cycle  387 

course,  the  fountain-head  of  all  legendary  narratives  in  regard  to 
the  conversion  of  pagan  lands  to  the  Christian  faith,  but  the  mar- 


of  the  Estoire  did  not  follow  the  two  legends  closely,  but  was  merely 
inspired  by  them. 

Let  us  take  first  the  Acts  of  Simon  and  Judas.  The  re- 
semblances here  are  of  a  very  general  nature.  If  our  author,  instead 
of  conveying  Joseph  and  the  Grail  directly  to  Britain  decided  to  ex- 
pand Robert's  accounts  with  episodes  of  that  hero's  proselytizing  acti- 
vities, the  scene  of  such  activities  would  ha?e  to  be  laid  in  Western 
Asia,  since  Joseph  was  still  in  that  part  of  the  world  at  the  close 
of  Robert's  poem. 

For  the  rest,  in  the  legend  of  Simon  and  Judas,  there  is  no 
battle  between  the  Persian  General  (Varardach)  or  his  king  (Xerxes) 
and  the  invading  army,  for  the  latter  voluntarily  surrenders  (p.  615) 
before  there  is  any  fighting  and  the  only  advantage  to  the  apostles 
in  the  premises  is  through  this  verification  of  their  prediction  as  to  the 
issue  of  the  war,  as  against  that  of  the  magi,  to  overthrow  whom 
they  came  to  Persia  in  the  first  instance.  The  models  of  the  Estoire 
here  were,  obviously,  such  legends  as  those  of  Constantine  the  Great 
(Inventio  Cruris)  and  Clovis  (Gregory  of  Tours,  Book  II,  ch.  80—31), 
who  were  converted  to  Christianity,  because  Christ  granted  them  vic- 
tory in  answer  to  appeals  offered  in  hours  of  danger.  —  Again,  the 
advocates,  who,  in  the  Latin  legend,  are  so  prominent  (pp.  618ff.)  as 
instruments  of  the  apostles  in  humiliating  the  magi  in  contests  of 
eloquence,  do  not  appear  at  all  in  the  Estoire.  Indeed,  in  the  latter 
there  is  only  one  heathen  clerk  who  disputes  with  the  Christians 
(Joseph  and  JosepheJ,  and  that  only  in  one  scene  (pp.  62  f.).  —  Simi- 
larly, there  is  nothing  in  the  Estoire  to  correspond  to  the  episodes 
of  the  torture  of  the  magi  by  the  serpents  which  they  call  forth,  of 
the  deacon  who  is  vindicated  by  the  speech  of  the  one-day-old  child, 
of  the  tigers  miraculously  tamed,  of  the  priests  of  the  temple  where 
images  of  both  sun  and  moon  are  worshipped  and  of  the  conflict  of 
these  priests  with  the  apostles.  It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  in  only 
a  few  cases  have  the  episodes  in  the  legend  of  Simon  and  Judas  anything 
corresponding  in  the  Estoire.  In  a  still  smaller  proportion  of  cases, 
of  course,  do  the  far  more  numerous  episodes  of  the  Estoire  find  parallels 
in  the  legend. 

The  main  points  of  resemblance  between  the  Latin  legend  and 
the  Estoire  are  in  the  power  of  the  missionaries  to  overcome  demons 
and  expel  them  from  the  idols  whence  they  have  been  accustomed  to 
deceive  the  people  through  false  oracles.  Cp.  the  Latin  legend,  pp.  631ff., 
and    the    Estoire,  pp.  45  ff.,  75  ff.     But    this   was  a   commonplace    of 


388  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

vellous  elements  in  such  stories  had  been  so  frequently  repeated 
as  to  have  become  a  part  of  the  general  tradition  of  mediaeval 


saints'  lives  and  even  of  secular  literature.  Cp.  MPh.,  X,  575,  note  I. 
Cp.,  besides  Acta  Bartholomaei,  C.  Teschendorf:  Acta  Apostolorum 
Apocrypha,  pp.  243 ff.,  (Leipzig,  1851),  and  the  life  of  St.  Patrick 
by  Jocelyn  of  Furness  (twelfth  century),  Acta  Sanctorum  for  March, 
II,  552  (idol  is  overthrown  by  Patrick's  prayer),  555  (the  idols  fall 
and  break  of  themselves,  as  soon  as  Patrick  approaches  the  temple). 
Examples  of  this  superstition  could  be  cited  almost  indefinitely. 

As  far  as  the  Passio  Matthaei,  itself,  is  concerned,  there  is 
really  no  resemblance  at  all  here  to  the  Estoire.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  historical  events  in  the  life  of  the  Ethiopian  king"  and  saint,  Caleb 
Elesbaan  (first  half  of  the  sixth  century),  with  which,  in  a  disguised 
form,  this  Latin  legend  is  ultimately  connected,  do  offer  some  resem- 
blance to  the  story  of  Mor drain,  but  the  similarity  is  only  a  general 
one.  Besides,  Heinzel  has  produced  no  evidence  that  there  existed 
any  account  of  these  events,  so  distant  from  our  author  with  respect 
to  both  space  and  time,  to  which  he  might  have  had  access.  For  the 
life  of  Caleb  (the  monarch's  original  name)  or  Elesbaan  (his  epithet, 
meaning  in  the  Ethiopian  language,  "the  blessed"),  as  he  is  more  ge- 
nerally called,  see  the  article,  Elesbaan,  in  Smith  and  Wace's  Dictionary 
of  Christian  Biography.  In  the  Acta  Sanctorum  his  life  is  given 
under  the  date  of  Oct.  27.  Cp.  the  Bollandist  edition,  Octobris,  vol. 
XII,  pp.  296 ff.  For  other  details  touching  his  crusade  cp.  ibid.,  vol. 
X,  694 ff.  (in  the  account  of  the  martyrdom  St.  Arethas,  etc.).  The 
events  in  question  are  as  follows:  Dhu  Nowas,  about  523  A.  D.,  over- 
threw the  rule  of  Elesbaan  in  Homeritis  (Southern  Arabia  or  Yemen), 
then  a  province  of  Ethiopia,  and  massacred  the  Christians  —  espec- 
ially at  Negran,  where  St.  Arethas  and  St.  Ruma  were  among  the 
victims.  Urged  by  the  emperor  Justin  and  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria, 
Elesbaan  in  525  A.  D.  led  a  great  expedition  to  the  Yemen,  defeated 
and  slew  Dhu  Nowas,  restored  Christianity  in  the  land  and  returned 
to  Ethiopia.  Pious  narratives  of  these  events  (cp.  op.  tit.,  X,  758) 
represent  that  just  after  his  return  from  this  crusade  he  abdicated  his 
throne  and  entered  a  monastery,  where  he  died  some  time  later.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  there  was  an  interval  of  something  like  twenty-five 
years  between  his  crusade  and  his  abdication  and  retirement  to  a 
monastic  life. 

Now,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  most  important  elements  of  this 
situation  were  familiar  to  all  educated  Europeans  at  the  beginning  of 
the  thirteenth  century  in  a  form  that  affected  them  much  more  closely 
than  this  story  of  the  royal  saint  of  times  already  ancient  in  far 


The   Vulgate  Cycle  389 

piety.    As  far  as  the  Estoire  is  concerned,  the  conversions  both 
of  Evelach's  land  and  of  Great  Britain  follow,  in  essentials,  the 

off  Abyssinia  —  namely,  in  the  crusades  of  the  period  to  the  Holy 
Land,  especially  the  Third  Crusade  (1189  —  1192).  In  both  cases,  of 
course,  the  expeditions  were  undertaken,  not  ior  the  rescue  of  im- 
prisoned missionaries,  but  to  recover  a  land  which  unbelievers  had 
wrested  from  Christian  rule  and,  incidentally,  to  avenge  the  cruelties 
which  had  been  inflicted  on  the  followers  of  Christ.  Apart  from  the 
requirements  of  his  story,  the  success  of  the  First  Crusade  in  1099 
might  well  have  justified  the  author  of  the  Estoire  in  making  Mor- 
drain's  expedition  successful.  That  he  should  have  added  the  idealizing 
touch,  by  which  this  monarch,  having  won  his  victory,  is  represented 
as  renouncing  earthly  glory  and  adopting  a  life  of  religious  devotion, 
would  be  surely  natural  in  an  ecclesiastic  of  that  age. 

The  similarity  which  Heinzel  sees  (p.  139)  between  the  roles  of 
Elesbaan's  sons  and  those  of  Mordrain's  in  the  Grimaud  episode  of  the 
Estoire  is  negligible,  apart  from  its  vagueness,  for  this  episode  occurs 
in  only  two  MSS.  and  is,  beyond  question,  spurious. 

The  true  motive  which,  above  all  others,  no  doubt,  has  led  Heinzel 
and  his  followers  to  imagine  that  the  life  of  Elesbaan  was  a  source 
of  the  Estoire  is  their  identification  of  Kalafes  (Calafres)-  Alphasan 
(Aufassain,  Alphesim,  Alfesim,  Alfasein),  name  of  the  king  of  the 
Estoire,  I,  286 ff.,  who  became  a  Christian  on  being  healed  of  leprosy 
by  Alain,  with  Kaleb  (Caleb)  —  Elesbaan,  name  of  the  famous 
monarch  of  Ethiopia.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  extant  records  he 
is  called  either  Caleb  or  (more  often)  Elesbaan,  never  Caleb  Elesbaant 
as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover.  To  call  the  historical  Caleb 
or  Elesbaan,  Caleb  Alfassam,  as  Lot  does,  pp.  206,  note  10,  207, 
is,  of  course,  unwarranted.  But  the  identity  of  these  names  is  ex- 
tremely questionable.  There  is  no  real  correspondence  at  all  between 
their  second  elements,  and,  besides,  as  I  have  observed  in  Part  IV, 
below,  Alphasan  is,  no  doubt,  derived  from  Elisaphan,  Exodus,  VI, 
22,  and  Numbers  HI,  30.  On  the  other  hand,  Calafres  (the  reading 
of  Hucher's  text,  HI,  287)  is,  doubtless,  the  correct  form  of  the  original 
heathen  name  of  the  king,  for  that  is  a  mere  variant  of  Galafres, 
which  is  one  of  the  commonest  of  all  names  for  heathen  kings  in  the 
chansons  de  geste,  as  a  glance  into  E.  Langlois's  Table  des  noms 
propres  dans  les  chansons  de  geste  will  show.  That  the  Calafes 
of  Sommer's  text  is  merely  a  corruption  of  Galafres  is  virtually  cer 
tain,  for  in  Hucher's  text  the  wicked  pagan  who  excites  his  fellows 
against  Nascien  is  called,  II,  334  Calafres  (Calafer),  but,  H,  336, 
Galafres,  Galafre.     Sommer's  text  here  I,  87  ff.,  has  Calafer. 

As  is  generally  agreed,    the   story  of   the    conversion   of  Kalafes 


390  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

natural  course  of  such  events  in  the  authentic  history  of  Christi- 
anity, under  like  conditions,28  and  the  fables  with  regard  to  the 
intervention  of  supernatural  agencies  in  such  episodes  find  their 
parallels  in  the  mediaeval  chronicles  of  Western  Europe.  In  the 
romance,  as  in  the  actual  life  of  the  times,  the  conversion  of  the 
king  meant  inevitably,  also,  the  conversion  of  his  subjects.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  the  missionaries  had  gained  the  permission  of 
the  monarch,  a  great  assembly  would  be  held  in  which  they  would 
preach  the  new  doctrine  before  him.29  The  priests  of  the  pre- 
vailing heathen  religion  would  be  present  —  generally,  we  may 
conjecture,  in  a  hostile  mood30  —  and  questions  and  debates  would 
naturally  be  features  of  such  occasions.31  Then,  when  the  king 
had  decided  to  embrace  the  new  religion,  the  first  act  would  be 
the  destruction  of  the  temples  and  idols  of  the  vanquished  gods.3* 
Moreover,  according  to  the  legends  of  the  chroniclers  about  the 
time  of  the  missionaries'  arrival  the  monarch  might  be  engaged 
in  a  desperate  battle  with  his  enemies,  and  so  might  be  impelled 
by  the  urgency  of  his  peril  to  promise  the  adoption  of  the  new 
faith,  if  the  god  of  its  votaries  will  secure  him  the  victory.33 


Alphasan  in  the  Estoire  is  imitated  from  the  legend  of  Abgar,   King 
of  Edessa,  Fabricius,  I,  317f. 

28  For  example,  in  the  conversion  of  England  by  St.  Augustine 
and  other  missionaries,  as  related  by  Bede,  Historia  Ecclesiastica 
Gentis  Anglorum. 

29  Cp.  Bede,  Book  I,  ch.  25  —  26  (St.  Augustine's  conversion  of 
Ethelbert,  King  of  Kent)  and  Book  II,  ch.  13  (Paulinus's  conversion 
of  Edwin,  King  of  Northumberland). 

s0  Occasional  subsequent  lapses  into  paganism,  as  in  the  case  of 
Ethelbert's  sons,  Bede,  II,  ch.  5,  confirm  this  natural  inference  from 
the  conditions.  This  was  not  always  true,  however,  if  we  may  accept 
the  accounts  of  our  ecclesiastical  chroniclers  —  e.  g.  Bede,  II,  13, 
just  cited,  and  Gregory  of  Tours,  II,  (conversion  of  Clovis). 

81  Cp.,  especially,  Bede,  II,  13,  The  romancer,  besides,  would 
be  influenced  by  Jesus's  disputations  with  the  Pharisees  in  the  Gospels. 
In  the  celebrated  passage  in  Bede,  II,  13,  it  was  the  con- 
verted high  priest  of  the  heathen  religion  who  led  in  the  destruction. 

38  Besides  the  legends  of  Constantino  and  Clovis,  already  cited, 
cp..  too,  the  similar  story  concerning  Edwin,  King  of  Northumberland, 
in  Bede,  II,  9. 


The   Vulgate  Cycle  391 

Next  in  importance  among  the  writer's  innovations  is  the 
allegory  of  Solomon's  ship  (Holy  Church)  and  the  mystical  ob- 
jects which  it  contains  —  the  bed,  the  golden  crown,  the  spin- 
dles made  from  the  wood  of  the  Tree  of  Life,  and  King  David's 
sword  (pp.  120 ff.).  The  oriental  legend  of  Solomon  and  Marcolf, 
according  to  which  the  wise  king  is  so  often  the  victim  of  his 
guileful  wife,  has  here  been  taken  as  the  starting-point  of  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  outbursts  of  the  mediaeval  imagination, 
as  bizarre  as  it  is  vigorous.  Our  author,  however,  did  not  restrict 
himself  to  Christian  or  oriental  legend.34  His  purpose  was  that 
of  story-tellers  in  all  ages  —  namely,  to  interest  his  readers  or 
hearers  —  and  provided  he  attained  that  object,  he  felt  himself 
at  liberty  in  his  romance  to  compound  with  the  deepest  theo- 
logical and  mystical  conceptions  of  his  time  stories  of  piracy,35 
of  voyages  imaginaires™  and  even,  perhaps,  of  farce.37 

The  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  derives  such  plan  as  it  possesses, 
as  well  as  its  most  significant  conceptions  concerning  the  Grail, 
from  Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph.™  There  already  we  find,  first, 
the  history  of  the  Grail  down  to  the  departure  of  Joseph  of  Ari- 


84  On  the  minor  sources  of  the  Estoire,  see  particularly  Heinzel, 
pp.  145  ff.  The  references,  however,  vary  very  much  in  pertinency. 
In  MPh.,  X,  522,  the  present  writer  has  cited  some  more  exact 
parallels  to  the  curious  motif  of  Mordrain's  cohabitation  with  the 
wooden  image  of  a  beautiful  woman,  I,  83. 

86  I,  89  ff. 

36  Mordrain's  and  Nascien's  experiences,  I,  89 ff.,  114ff.  The 
Navigatio  Sancti  Brendani,  whose  influence  Nutt  has  detected,  also, 
in  the  beginning  of  our  romance,  is  especially  important  here. 

37  The  Hippocrates  fabliau,  I,  171  ff.,  the  genuineness  of  which, 
however,  is  not  altogether  certain.  Its  sources  are  given  by  Heinzel, 
pp.  145f. 

38  Hucher's  text,  pp.  12 f.,  as  Heinzel,  p.  149,  remarks,  seems 
intended  to  indicate  a  sort  of  division  into  four  parts,  i.  e.  accounts 
of  (1)  lineage  of  the  Grail  family,  (2)  account  of  the  Grail  (origins?), 
(3)  paours,  incidents  displaying  the  powers  of  the  Grail?  (4)  mer- 
veillesy  adventures  of  the  Grail  company?  As  Lot  observes,  in  Lancelot, 
a  tripartite  division  was  more  likely  the  author's  true  intention.  The 
matter,  however,  is  of  little  importance,  as  he  really  does  not  carry 
out  the  indicated  divisions. 


392  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

mathea  from  Jerusalem,  then,  the  wanderings  of  Joseph  and  the 
Grail  company  in  the  East,  and  lastly  (merely  foreshadowed)  the 
journey  of  the  Grail   and  its  guardians  westward  for  the  con- 
version of  Great  Britain.    We  have  just  seen  with  what  materials 
its  author  filled  out  these  meagre  outlines,  but  if  we  except  the 
tripartite  division  of  the  adventures   of  Mordrain,  Nascien,  and 
Celidoine  before  their  arrival  in  Britain  —  another  tribute  to  the 
power  of  the  mystical  number  three  (the  number  of  the  Christian 
Godhead),  which  is  a  sort  of  obsession  with  the  writers  of  the 
Grail  romances  —  there  is  nothing  that  evinces  any  real  reflection 
in  the  arrangement  of  these  materials.   The  author  dulls  the  effect 
of  his  finer  conceptions,  such  as  the  allegory  of  Solomon's  ship 
and    its    contents,    by    a    deluge    of    minor    incidents    that    are 
both  insignificant  and   extravagant.    As  a  result,   we   have  the 
usual  formlessness  of  Arthurian  romance  in  a  heightened  degree, 
owing  to  the  length  of  the  work.   Few  other  productions  even  of 
the  Middle  Ages  illustrate  so  well  the  truth  of  the  Greek  proverb 
that   "the  half  is   better  than   the  whole".     The  climax  of  in- 
competence, however,  in  respect  to  form  would  be  reached,  if  our 
author  were  really  responsible  for  the  eleventh-hour  introduction 
of  Robert's  Grail  family  as  guardians  of  the  Grail,  after  cha- 
racters of  his  own  creation  (save  Joseph)  had  been  fulfilling  that 
function  through  nearly  five  sixths  of  the  romance.    The  two  sets 
of  characters  are  fundamentally  irreconcilable  and  it  is  difficult 
to  believe  that  a  writer  of  any  capacity  whatever,  such  as  the 
author  of  the  Estoire,  despite  all  his  limitations,  was,  would  have 
wantonly  spoiled  his  work  in  this  fashion.39   It  seems  much  more 


39  The  bungling  of  the  genealogies  excites  similar  suspicions. 
Cp.  p.  375,  note  I,  above.  The  case  of  the  elder  Galahad  is  particularly  bad. 
The  character  has  nt  raison  d'etre  at  all.  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  223; 
thinks  that  an  unlucky  penchant  for  fanciful  etymologies  on  our  author's 
part  caused  his  creation  and  that  afterwards  our  author  himself  was 
embarrassed  by  this  new  Galahad.  If  this  is  so,  the  remedy  was 
easy:  All  he  had  to  do  was  to  strike  out  the  few  passages  in  which 
the  character  occurred.  Heinzel's  idea  that  he  was  derived  from  a 
preexisting  legend  (p.  134 f.)  is,  of  course,  a  purely  gratuitous  as- 
sumption. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  393 

likely  that  some  redactor  who  regretted  the  loss  of  the  Grail  cha- 
racters of  our  author's  source  (the  Joseph)  endeavored  to  save 
them  by  combining  them  in  this  impossible  manner  with  those  of 
the  derivative  romance.40 

The  Estoire  has,  of  course,  its  share  of  the  religious  sym- 
bolism which  hangs  like  a  heavy  cloud  over  its  companion  romance, 
the  Queste,  but  the  application  of  the  allegorical  method  is  much 
less  constant  and  rigorous  here  than  in  the  case  of  the  latter. 
Whether  its  author  was  identical  with  the  author  of  the  Queste 
or  not,  the  romance  exhibits  the  common  mediaeval  delight  in 
descriptions  of  fighting  in  a  much  greater  degree  than  the  Queste 
and  it  presses  into  the  service  of  religion  a  much  greater  variety 
of  romantic  incident  than  is  found  in  the  companion41  work.  But 
this  very  variety  gives  the  Estoire  its  rambling  character  and 
there  is  no  one  " divine  event"  at  the  end  of  the  romance  to  hold 
the  author  down  to  a  certain  concentration  in  the  development 
of  the  action,  as  is  the  case  with  the  Queste.  In  accordance  with 
these  characteristics,  the  romance,  though  in  the  same  general  vein 
as  the  Queste  and  moving  within  the  same  range  of  ideas,  as 
compared  with  the  latter,  leaves  an  impression  of  inferior  spiritual 
earnestness,  or  fanaticism,  if  you  will. 

That  both  of  these  romances  are  the  productions  of  eccle- 
siastical workshops  has  never  been  questioned  and  is  not  likely 
to  be.  No  one  but  an  ecclesiastic  would  have  possessed  in  the 
same  degree  such  learning  in  matters  pertaining  to  the  Bible,  to 
ritual,  and  to  dogma,  or  such  mastery  of  contemporary  methods 
of  allegorical  interpretation.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  the  ro- 
mance, itself,  supplied  an  indication  as  to  the  place  of  its  origin; 

40  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  81,  rejects  the  theory  of  alteration,  here 
suggested. 

41  This  is,  also,  apparent  from  the  variety  of  sources  used  in  this 


romance 

42 


2  On  this  subject  cp.  Bruce,  "Mordrain,  Corbenic  and  the  Grail 
Romances,"  MLN,  XXXIV,  385ff.  (Nov.,  1919).  The  name,  which 
is  of  Germanic  origin,  is  only  found  in  the  extant  documents  in  the 
Latinized  forms,  Maurdramnus,  Maardrannus,  Mordramnus,  Mor- 
thrannus.  Our  meagre  records  do  not  state  where  he  was  born.  The 
fact  that  whilst  Maurdramnus  was  abbot  of  Corbie,  a  king,  Desiderius 


394  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

for  the  name  of  the  heathen  king  who,  strange  to  say,  was  born 
(according  to  the  romancer)  at  Meaux  in  France  and  who,  after  his 
conversion  and  zealous  service  in  the  cause  of  Christ,  adopted  a 
religious  life  and  died  in  a  monastery  of  his  own  founding,  viz, 
Mordrain(s),  has  been  discovered  nowhere  else  in  mediaeval  re- 
cords save  as  the  name  of  the  abbot  who  presided  over  the  famous 
Benedictine  monastery  of  Corbie  in  Picardy  from  769  to  781, 
A.  D.42  It  appears  obvious  that  only  a  monk  of  Corbie  would  have 
had  an  interest  in  conferring  on  his  royal  saint  the  name  of  an  abbot 
of  this  foundation  —  one,  too,  who  had  been  dead  for  upwards 
of  four  centuries.  It  accords  with  this  indication  that  the  name 
given  to  the  Grail  castle  ("palais  spiriteux")  in  this  romance 
and  in  the  Queste,  viz.,  Corbenic,  coincides  with  that  of  Corbeni 
(in  the  Middle  Ages,  Corbiniacum) ,  a  town,  somewhat  southeast 
of  Laon  (so,  in  the  same  general  region  as  Corbie),  where  there 
was  and  had  long  been  a  royal  palace  and  at  the  same  time  a 
Benedictine  establishment  connected  with  one  of  the  most  famous 
and  venerable  shrines  of  France  (St.  Marculf's).  That  the  name 
of  the  Grail  castle  in  our  romances  was  derived  from  the  name 
of  this  place  is  hardly  open  to  doubt.43 

of  Lombardy,  was  actually  leading  a  life  of  religious  devotion  in  the 
abbey  may  have  led  our  romancer  to  combine  the  two  characters  in 
Mordrain.  Note,  too,  that  the  four  hundred  years'  interval  between 
the  death  of  Maurdramnus  and  the  composition  of  the  Queste  may 
be  responsible  for  the  author's  making  Mordrain  live  four  hundred 
years.     Cp.  VI,  62. 

48  For  details  concerning  Corbeni,  the  palace  and  shrine,  see  my 
article  just  cited. 

In  view  of  what  has  been  said  in  the  text  above  it  seems  need- 
less to  discuss  A.  Wesselofsky's  effort,  "Zur  Frage  iiber  die  Heimath 
der  Legende  vom  heiligen  Gral,"  Archiv  fur  Slavische  Philologie, 
XXIII,  321  ff.  (1910),  to  trace  the  names  in  the  Estoire  to  extra- 
Biblical  oriental  sources.  His  identifications  are  fantastic  to  the  last 
degree.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  Miss  M.  A.  Murray's  attempt  in  the 
journal,  Ancient  Egypt,  (London  and  New  York),  for  1916,  Part  1, 
pp.  Iff.,  to  establish  an  Egyptian  origin  for  certain  of  these  names. 
Thus  she  derives  Nascien's  name  from  a  hypothetical  Arabic  noun, 
Ndshi'un,  which  would  mean  "one  who  is  growing  up."  But  Nascien 
is,  beyond  question,  derived  from  Naasson  in  the  genealogy  of  Christ, 
St.  Matthew,  I,  4.     Ex  uno  omnia. 


The   Vulyate  Cycle  395 

2.  L'Estoire  de  Merlin. 

As  has  been  stated  already,  the  Merlin  branch  of  the  Vulgate 
cycle  consists  of  (1)  the  prose  rendering  of  Robert  de  Boron's  Merlin 
and  (2)  a  continuation  of  this  prose  rendering,  which  is  much 
longer  than  the  original  work. 

It  is  generally  agreed  that  this  continuation  is  the  latest  in 
date  of  any  division  of  the  cycle.44  Its  frequent  allusions  to  other 
branches  and  its  dependence  on  these  same  branches  in  numerous 
episodes  put  this  beyond  doubt.45 

It  will  be  observed  from  the  analysis  given  below  that  the 
continuation  is,  for  the  most  part,  made  up  of  interminable  des- 
criptions of  wars  between  Arthur  and  his  rebellious  barons,  or 
between  Arthur  and  the  Saxons,  or  between  the  rebellious  barons 
and  the  Saxons.  Of  more  interest  than  these  prolix  and  mono- 
tonous descriptions  are  the  occasional  passages  that  deal  with  in- 
cidents of  peace  —  particularly,  those  that  relate  to  Arthur's 
courtship  and  marriage  of  Guinevere.46  After  all,  however,  the 
Vulgate  Merlin  continuation  might  well  have  been  left  a  prey 
to  oblivion,  without  any  loss  to  the  world,  were  it  not  for  the 
famous  episodes  concerning  the  enchanter's  passion  for  Vivien  and 
her  treacherous  imprisonment  of  him   through  the  force  of   his 


44 


Cp.,  e.  g.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX1,  109  ff. 
(1905),  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  7  (1920). 

46  Cp.  allusions  to  the  Lancelot:  the  incestuous  conception  of 
Mordred,  Sommer,  II,  129,  the  veiled  prediction  (in  allegorical  form) 
of  Lancelot's  career,  ibid.  p.  214,  the  part  played  throughout  the  con- 
tinuation by  Ban  (Lancelot's  father),  pp.  245  ff.  (Guinebaut  and  the 
magic  chessboard),  etc.;  allusion  to  the  Estoire,  pp.  221  f.  (circum- 
stances of  its  composition);  to  the  Queste:  p.  335  (Galahad,  the  Grail 
Winner,  as  the  perfect  knight);  to  the  Mort  Artu:  p.  265  (Mordred's 
treason).  As  is  said  below,  the  whole  continuation  is  obviously  a  sort 
of  introduction  to  the  Lancelot,  and  passages  in  it  that  were  sugges- 
ted by  the  latter  might  be  counted  by  the  scores.  —  The  Pelles  of 
the  Vulgate  Merlin  continuation  is,  of  course,  derived  from  the  Lan- 
celot and  Queste  —  only  he  is  here  always  called  "Pelles  de  Liste- 
nois."  Cp.  MPh.,  XVI,  1261  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  239,  note  3,  makes 
a  distinction  between  the  two  Pelles,  but  this  is  unwarranted. 

46  pp.  157 ff.,  216ff. 


396  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

own  magic  spell  which  he  had  been  weak  enough  to  betray  to  her.47 
An  exception,  perhaps,  might,  also,  be  made  in  favor  of  the  spirit- 
ed description  of  Arthur's  combat  with  the  monster  cat  on  the 
shores  of  the  "Lake  of  Lausanne".48 

The  continuation  which  we  are  discussing  was  composed  as  a 
sort  of  introduction  to  the  Lancelot.  There  was  no  obstacle  to 
the  assumption  that  the  coronation  of  Arthur  —  at  which  point 
Robert's  Merlin  ended  —  and  the  birth  of  Lancelot  —  with  which 
the  Lancelot  began  —  were  separated  by  a  considerable  interval, 
and  the  author  of  our  continuation  availed  himself  of  this  cir- 
cumstance to  exploit  the  general  interest  in  the  Arthurian  story 
in  his  own  behalf  —  doubtless,  with  some  particular  patron  in 
view.  His  work,  then,  is  a  pseudo-history  of  Arthur's  reign, 
down  to  the  birth  of  Lancelot,  and  it  constitutes,  accordingly, 
an  introduction  to  the  Lancelot.  Merlin  continues  to  play  a  lead- 
ing role  in  the  events  of  that  reign,  but,  inasmuch  as  in  the 
Lancelot  we  hear  of  him  only  in  the  episode,49  probably  inter- 
polated,50 in  which  the  story  of  his  imprisonment  by  Vivien  is 
told,  our  author  is  under  the  necessity  of  accounting  for  the  magi- 
cian's disappearance,  and  he  does  so  by  adopting  and  expanding 
the  conceptions  of  the  Lancelot  episode  just  alluded  to. 

In  general,  the  writer's  main  guide  in  the  composition  of 
his  chronicle  is  Wace's  Brut?1  possibly,  in  an  expanded  form,52 

47  Cp.  pp.  209ff.,  450ff.  "  pp,  441ff. 

49  Cp.  Sommer,  III,  19ff. 

50  Cp.  Brugger,  Zs.  /.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXX1,  188.  On  the 
supposed  source  of  the  interpolation  (viz.  the  hypothetical  Brut  by  a 
certain  Martin  —  of  Rochester,  according  to  some  MSS.  of  the  Vul- 
gate Merlin),  cp.  ibid.  pp.  181ff. 

61  In  the  Huth-Merlin,  I,  p.  XXIV,  G.  Paris,  in  speaking  of  the 
sources  of  the  Vulgate  JfeWm-continuation,  mentions,  besides  the  Lan- 
celot, Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  "le  Perceval  de  Robert"  (i.  e.  the 
Didot-Perceval).  But  we  may  safely  assume  that  the  romancers  always 
used  French  paraphrases  of  Geoffrey  —  especially,  Wace's  —  rather 
than  the  Latin  original.  —  Instead  of  the  Didot-Perceval,  Paris  should 
have  mentioned  the  Perlesvaus,  I,  170,  219  ff.,  whose  influence  in  the 
passage,  II,  316,  relating  to  Kay's  murder  of  Arthur's  son,  Lohot, 
seems  undeniable. 

62  Namely,  the  lost  original  of  Layamon,  or  Brugger's  Martin  of 
Rochester,  if  the  latter  ever  really  existed. 


The    Vulgate  Cycle  397 

but  he  has  also  developed  suggestions  of  the  Lancelot™  and,  doubt- 
less, of  still  other  romances.54  There  are  probably,  in  addition, 
some  episodes  of  the  author's  own  invention,  but  it  is  safe  to 
assume  that,  if  such  there  be,  they  are  of  little  significance;  for, 
on  the  whole,  the  Merlin  continuation  is  decidedly  the  dullest 
and  least  original  portion  of  the  whole  Vulgate  cycle. 

3.  Li  Livres  de  Lancelot. 

There  is  no  certain  indication  of  any  division  or  divisions 
in  the  text  of  the  Lancelot,  itself,5^  and  we  shall  see  below56  that, 

88  Already  at  II,  97  —  so  within  nine  pages  of  the  beginning 
of  the  continuation  —  Ban  and  his  brother,  Bohort,  are  introduced 
as  allies  of  Arthur  and  they  are  prominent  in  the  action  down  to  the 
end  of  the  romance.  The  author  took  them,  of  course,  from  the  Lan- 
celot. So,  too,  with  the  character  of  Claudas,  II,  98,  206  f.,  279,  etc. 
At  II,  214,  there  is  a  veiled  prediction  of  Lancelot's  career  as  told 
in  the  Lancelot;  at  II,  159,  346,  mention  is  made  of  Pelles'  daughter, 
and  so  on.  The  continuation  is  dependent  on  the  Lancelot  in  so  many 
episodes  that  further  citations  are  superfluous.  The  author,  indeed, 
refers,  II,  221,  directly  to  that  romance  as  the  one  which  will  relate 
Lancelot's  adventures. 

84  There  is  a  direct  reference  to  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal 
in  the  passage,  II,  221,  where  the  author  introduces  the  younger 
Nascien  (his  own  creation)  as  the  kinsman  of  Celidoine  and  of  the 
older  Nascien.  Cp.,  too,  II,  334 f.,  where  the  references  to  Joseph, 
Galahad  and  Sarras  evince  a  knowledge  of  both  the  Estoire  and  the 
Queste.  The  allusion,  II,  385,  to  the  fatal  encounter  of  Arthur  and 
Mordred  on  Salisbury  Plain  is,  of  course,  based  on  the  Mort  Artu, 
VI,  365  ff.  The  story  of  Mordred's  incestuous  birth,  II,  129,  may  have 
been  suggested  either  by  the  Mort  Artu,  VI,  325,  349,  377,  or  the 
Lancelot,  V,  284.  —  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez  has  supplied  the  con- 
tinuation with  the  character  of  that  name  who  fights  against  the  Saxons, 
11,  148,  as  the  Vengeance  de  Raguidel  of  the  same  poet  has  supplied 
the  "vile  del  gaut  destroit,"  II,  164.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Chastei 
des  Caroles,  II,  246,  is  borrowed  from  the  Lancelot,  V,  149  ff.,  not 
from  Meraugis,  11.  4334  ff.  (source  of  the  Lancelot  episode).  The 
reference  to  the  expedition  of  the  Argonauts  and  to  the  children  of 
Oedipus,  II,  230,  are,  doubtless,  derived  from  the  Roman  de  Troie 
and  Roman  de  Thebes,  respectively. 

58  On  this  subject  see,  especially,  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  9ff.  There 
are  divisions,  to  be  sure,  in  the  manuscript  tradition.  Particularly 
common  in  this  tradition  is  the  division   into  two  parts,  the  so-called 


398  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

according  to  the  theory  recently  advanced  by  Ferdinand  Lot,  the 
whole  of  the  Lancelot  is  really  the  work  of  a  single  author  — 
the  same  that  composed,  also,  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal,  the 
Queste  del  Saint  Graal,  and  the  Mort  Artu.  Having  given  in  an- 
other place  my  reasons,  however,  for  rejecting  this  theory,  in  the 
following  pages  I  shall  adopt  the  view  as  to  the  plural  authorship 
of  this  branch  which  has  been  generally  held  by  Arthurian  scholars 
and  which  I  have  attempted  to  justify  elsewhere.57 

There  was,  of  course,  no  connection,  originally,  between  the 
stories  of  Lancelot  and  the  Grail.  Chretien's  Lancelot  contains 
no  allusion  to  the  Grail  and  his  Perceval  contains  no  allusion  to 
Lancelot.  It  was  the  creator  of  Galahad  who  first  connected  the 
two.  Owing  to  the  considerations  which  have  already  been  set 
forth,58  we  cannot  accept  the  Lancelot  and  the  Queste  as  works 
of  the  6ame  author,  yet  the  dependence  of  the  latter  on  the  former 
is  obvious,  and  the  Lancelot  was  certainly  the  earlier  romance. 
Galahad,  of  course,  exists  purely  as  the  hero  of  the  Grail  quest 
and  must  therefore  have  been  created  by  the  author  of  the  Queste. 


Agravain  forming  the  second  part.  Lots  explanation  of  this  division, 
op.  cit.y  pp.  llf.,  as  due  to  purely  material  considerations  —  to  have 
included  the  whole  romance  in  one  volume  would  have  been  intolerable, 
on  account  of  its  bulk  —  is,  doubtless,  correct,  but  a  want  of  har- 
mony in  the  narrative  between  the  beginning  of  the  Agravain  and 
the  end  of  the  preceding  part  still  needs  to  be  explained.  Cp.  RR, 
X,  63  ff. 

Some  MSS.  (cp.  Lot,  pp.  13  ff.)  assume  a  tripartite  division,  viz.  1. 
Galehaut  (through  Galehauts  death)  2.  Charete  (Charrette).  3.  Agra- 
vain. This  division  has  been  frequently  adopted  in  discussions  of  the 
Lancelot,  and,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer,  is  connected  with 
a  real  difference  of  authorship  for  the  parts  in  question. 

The  summaries  of  the  preceding  narrative  given  at  irregular  in- 
tervals throughout  the  Lancelot  (cp.  Lot,  p.  15)  are,  I  believe,  without 
significance.  They  are  very  likely  scribal  insertions,  intended  to  serve, 
in  a  rudimentary  fashion,  the   purpose   of  modern   tables   of   contents. 

68  Cp.  Part  IV. 

67  In  "The  Composition  of  the  Old  French  Prose  Lancelot;'  RR 
IX,  241  ff.,  353ff.  (1918),  X,  48ff.,  97ff.  (1919). 

68  Cp.  study  just  cited. 


The   Vulgate  Cycle  399 

All  references  then,  to  Galahad  and  Grail  matters59  which  we  find 
in  the  Lancelot  —  and  the  same  thing  is  true  of  other  branches 
of  the  cycle  —  must  have  been  later  additions  to  the  primitive 
text  of  this  romance.  Some  of  these  references  are  brief,  but 
others  involve  whole  episodes.60 

Apart  from  such  interpolations,  the  enormous  length  of  the 
Lancelot  and  the  differences  of  style  in  different  parts  of  the  ro- 
mance61 render  it  virtually  certain  that  this  branch,  as  it  stands 
in  our  extant  MSS.,  is  not  the  production  of  one  hand,  but  repre- 
sents rather  the  result  of  successive  continuations  and  other  ad- 
ditions to  the  original  work,62  just  as  is  the  case  with  the  Conte  del 
Graal  and  with  the  prose  Tristan  in  its  cyclic  form.63  To  be  sure, 
it  is  not  always  easy  to  fix  the  limits  of  these  various  expansions 
of  the  original  romance.    The  Galehaut,6i  however,  has  been  gene- 

59  All  references  to  Grail  matters  in  the  Lancelot  imply  that 
Galahad  is  the  Grail  hero.  Many  of  these  references  are  to  the  Queste, 
bnt  others  are  to  the  Estoire,  in  which  Galahad,  of  course,  is  assumed 
to  be  the  Grail  Winner,  as  well  as  in  the   Queste. 

80  See  my  article,  already  cited,  in  RR,  IX,  and  X.  We  have, 
for  example,  Sommer,  III,  226,  a  passing  remark  that  a  certain  quest 
for  Lancelot  was  "la  plus  haute  queste  qui  onques  fust  apres  celi  del 
Graal."  On  the  other  hand,  we  have  long  episodes  like  the  visits  of 
Gawain,  Lancelot,  and  Bohort  to  the  Grail  castle. 

61  Lot,  it  is  true,  in  his  Lancelot,  pp.  65 ff.,  disputes  that  there 
are  such  differences.  My  discussion  of  the  different  branches,  how- 
ever, will  show,  I  believe,  that  he  is  wrong. 

62  Cp.  RR,  IX,  241  ff.,  for  a  summary  of  critical  opinion  to 
this  effect. 

68  Cp.  op.  cit.,  pp.  244 ff.  There  are  four  continuations  to 
Chretien's  Perceval  (Conte  del  Graal),  viz.  Pseudo- Wauchier,  WTauchier, 
Manessier  and  Gerbert.  Moreover,  in  the  first  of  these  continuations 
there  are,  incontestabry,  interpolations,  and  not  improbably,  also,  some 
of  minor  extent  in  Wauchier,  at  least.  Besides,  we  have  prefixed  to 
Chretien's  romance  in  certain  MSS.  the  so-called  Elucidation  and 
Bliocadrans-prologue.  Note,  too,  the  introductory  and  final  episodes 
of  Wolfram's  Parzival,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  many  scholars  attri- 
bute to  the  much-discussed  Kyot  (Guiot).  These  episodes  represent 
additions  to  Chretien's  poem.  —  For  the  prose  Tristan  cp.  E.  Loseth, 
Le  roman  en  prose  de  Tristan,  p.  XII  (Paris,   1890). 

This  extends  from  the  beginning  of  the  romance  down  to  IV, 
155  (death  of  Galehaut). 


400  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

rally  accepted  as  a  separate  division — justly  so,  we  believe,  since, 
despite  a  multitude  of  extraneous  episodes,  it  forms  a  complete 
narrative,  in  itself,  of  Lancelot's  love  for  the  queen  and  his  friend- 
ship for  Galehaut  —  a  narrative,  which  is,  in  the  main,  uniform 
in  spirit  and  style.65  Immediately  after  the  Galehaut  comes  the 
Charete  section  (IV,  155 ff.)  —  so  called,  because  it  begins  with 
a  paraphrase  of  Chretien's  Lancelot  (Conte  de  la  Charete).  It 
lias  been  customary  to  regard  this  section  as  extending  down  to 
the  point  where  Agravain  suddenly  appears  in  the  quest  for  Lance- 
lot (V,  3).  A  more  natural  line  of  division,  however,  seems  to 
be  furnished  by  the  beginning  of  this  same  quest  (IV,  321).  The 
narrative  of  this  search  for  Lancelot  by  Gawain  and  other  knights, 
which  embraces  nearly  one-third  of  the  whole  Lancelot  (IV,  321 — 
V,  318),  was,  probably,  a  separate  continuation.  There  were,  still 
further,  two  more  continuations,  it  would  seem,  viz.  1.  Brumant's 
disastrous  attempt  to  occupy  the  Seat  Perilous,  Arthur's  wars  with 
the  Romans  and  with  Claudas,  which  end  with  Lancelot's  recovery 
of  his  patrimony  (V,  318 — 377 ).66  2.  The  concluding  section  of 
the  romance,  in  which,  for  the  first  time,  Perceval  is  introduced 
as  one  of  the  characters  of  the  Lancelot61  (V,  377 — 409).    The 


*B  Among  those  who  have  accepted  the  division  of  the  Lancelot 
into  1.  Galehaut 7  2.  Charete,  8.  Agravain,  cp.  G.  Paris,  Huth- 
Merlin,  I,  p.  XXXVII,  note  2,  and  G.  Grober,  Grundriss,  Band  II, 
Abteilung  I,  pp.  996 ff.  The  latter  attributes  distinctly  each  of  the 
divisions  to  a  different  author.  I  believe,  however,  that  the  composition 
of  these  divisions  is  not  so  simple  as  Grober  imagines  —  moreover, 
that  the  Galehaut  was  written  before  the  Charete.  The  fact  that 
the  Charete  follows  rather  closely  its  metrical  original  (Chretien's 
Lancelot)  doubtless  inclined  Grober  to  date  this  part  of  the  Lancelot 
before  the  other  parts  which  are  more  independent. 

66  On  this  continuation  cp.  RR,  X,  109ff.  The  author  probably 
had  before  him  the  whole  of  the  Lancelot  —  substantially  as  we 
know  it  in  the  extant  MSS.  —  down  to  p.  318  —  also,  the  Estoire, 
Queste  and  Mort  Artu.  Arthur's  wars  here  were  doubtless  based 
on  his  wars  against  Lancelot  and  the  Romans  in  the  Mort  Artu, 
VI,  317ff.  Cp.  RR.  IX,  390  ff. 

87  His  brother,  Agloval  had  already  appeared  —  for  the  first 
time    in   extant  Arthurian  romance  —  at   the   beginning   of  the  long 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  401 

number  of  passages  in  these  last  two  sections  which  reveal  a  know- 
ledge of  the  Mori  Artu  prove  that  they  were  both  written  after 
that  branch.68 

Each  of  the  divisions  of  the  Lancelot  which  I  have  just  in- 
dicated, except  the  last  two,  appears,  however,  to  have  undergone 
changes  and  interpolations  of  various  kinds.  For  example,  there  are 
reasons  for  doubting  whether  the  characters,  Lionel,  Bohort,  and 
Hector,  figured  in  the  original  Galehaut,63  and  the  episodes  of 
Merlin's  magical  imprisonment  by  Vivien  (III,  19ff.),  of  Arthurs 
infatuation  with  the  false  Guinevere  (IV,  10ff.),  of  Galehaut's 
dreams  (IV,  19ff.),  not  to  mention  others  in  this  same  section, 
were,  most  likely,  later  interpolations.  So,  too,  doubtless,  with 
the  episode  of  Bohort  and  Brangoire's  daughter  in  the  Charete 
section  (IV,  270 ff.),  which  is,  obviously,  an  imitation  of  the  story 
of  Galahad's  conception  in  a  later  part  of  the  Lancelot  (V,  105 ff.). 

Of  all  parts  of  the  romance  most  subject  to  interpolation 
and  expansion  was  the  one  (commencing  IV,  321)  in  which  the 
long  quest  of  Gawain  and  his  companions  for  Lancelot  is  narrated 


quest  for  Lancelot,  IV,  321.  and  had  played  a  considerable  role  in 
the  subsequent  narrative. 

Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  207,  note  1,  derives  Agloval's  name  from  Ag- 
lebul,  a  variant  for  Aeglippus,  name  of  a  king  of  Ethiopia  in  the 
Passio  MattheL  The  Ethiopian  Aglebul  is,  itself,  derived  from  Aglibal, 
the  name  of  one  of  the  gods  of  Palmyra.  Lot  arrives  at  his  derivation 
as  follows:  According  to  his  theory,  the  Lancelot  and  the  Estoire 
are  by  the  same  author — but,  since  this  author  seems  to  have  drawn 
upon  Ethiopian  history  (cp.  Heinzel,  Grail  treatise,  pp.  138f.)  for  names 
in  the  Estoire,  he  may  have  done  so,  likewise,  in  the  Lancelot, 
Granting,  however,  that  the  Lancelot  and  the  Estoire  were  from  the 
same  hand  —  which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  extremely  doubtful  —  it 
is  very  improbable  that  even  an  ecclesiastic  in  Northern  France  at 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  would  have  had  access  to 
writings  on  Ethiopian  history.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  this  name,  AgUbtll, 
has  only  become  known  to  European  scholars  in  recent  years. 

68  Cp.  RR,  X,  109ff.,  114ff. 

*9  Cp.  RR,  X,  57 ff.  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  125,  derives  Bohort 's 
name  from,  that  of  Beor,  a  king  of  Ethiopia  in  the  Passio  MattheL 
But  the  name,  Beor,  occurs  only  once  in  that  text,  and  the  derivation 
is  not  probable.    Cp.,  too,  what  I  have  just  said  in  the  previous  note, 


402  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

— -  the  part  which,  in  a  large  measure,  coincides  with  the  so- 
called  Agravain  division  of  the  Lancelot.  The  loose  quest  form, 
as  it  were,  invited  additions  and  expansions.  It  is  here  that  we 
have  inserted  the  episodes  which  connect  the  Lancelot  with  the 
Quests10  and  Mort  Artu11  that  follow  it  in  the  cycle. 

Here,  however,  as  in  the  other  divisions  of  the  Lancelot,  many 
of  the  inserted  passages  are  not  cyclic  either  in  aim  or  in  effect. 
They  are  of  the  same  general  character  as  other  adventures  in 
Arthurian  romance  and  were  composed  by  the  continuators  or  ex- 
panders of  this  branch  in  its  earlier  form  (or  forms)  simply  for 
the  additional  entertainment  of  their  readers. 

Among  the  latest  interpolations  of  the  Lancelot  should  be 
reckoned  especially  a  certain  number72  —  doubtless,  by  the  same 
person  —  which  were  inserted,  it  seems,  with  the  object  of  unit- 
ing the  Lancelot  and  the  Estoire.  These  include  probably  the  brief 
phrases  which,  in  conformity  with  the  ideas  of  the  Estoire,  re- 
present Lancelot  as  descended  from  the  line  of  David,  the  holy 
king  of  Israel,73  the  motive  for  imputing  this  descent  to  our  hero, 

70  Especially,  the  visits  to  Corbeiiic  (Grail  Castle)  of  Gawain, 
IV,  339ff.,  Lancelot,  V,  105  ff.  (which  includes,  of  course,  the  account 
of  how  Galahad  was  begotten),  and  Bohort,  V,  139 ff.,  294 ff. 

71  Cp.  V,  215  ff.  (Lancelot,  treacherously  imprisoned  by  Morgan, 
paints  on  the  walls  of  his  chamber  the  picture  of  his  intrigue  with 
Guinevere,  which  convinces  Arthur  hi  the  Mort  Artu,  VI,  236 ff.,  of 
his  wife's  adultery),  284  f.  (a  priest  tells  Mordred  of  his  —  Mordred's  — 
incestuous  birth  and  predicts  that  lie  and  his  father,  Arthur,  will  slay 
each  other  —  a  prediction  which  is  fulfilled  in  the  Mort  Artu,  VI,  377). 

Other  parts  of  the  Agravain  are,  probably,  also  from  the  pen 
of  the  author  of  the  Mort  Artu,  but,  unlike  the  ones  just  cited,  they 
have  no  cyclic  significance.     Cp.  RR,  X,  99  ff.,   105  ff. 

72  III,  3,  13,  88,  140,  IV,  174ff.  321f.,  324ff.,  V,  231  ff. 
243ff.,  249,  277ff.  The  passages,  IV,  321  f.,  324ff.,  indeed,  are  re- 
produced bodily  from  the  Estoire,  only  with  somewhat  abbreviated  text. 
The  distribution  of  these  interpolations  seems  to  show  that  they  were 
first  made  after  the  Lancelot  had  been  expanded  down  to  V,  318.  On 
the  whole  subject  see  more  fully  RR,  X,   120  f. 

Ill,  13,  88  (Lionel  and  Bohort,  whose  ancestry  was  the  same 
as  Lancelot's),  V,  17,  237.  The  passage,  III,  3,  about  Lancelot's 
change  of  name  from  Galahad  to  Lancelot  was,  also,  written  under 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  403 

in  turn,  being  the  desire  to  derive  Galahad,  his  son,  from  this 
same  line;  for  Christ  was  a  descendant  of  David's,  and  Galahad 
typifies  Christ. 

As  regards  the  sources7*  of  the  Lancelot,  it  was,  no  doubt, 
the  fame  of  Chretien's  Lancelot  (Conte  de  la  Charete)  that  led  the 
author  of  the  prose  work  in  its  primitive  form'75  to  make  this 
character  the  subject  of  a  full  biographical  romance;  for  Chretien, 
after  all,  had  dealt  with  but  one  episode  in  his  career.  To  be 
sure,  there  already  existed  such  a  biographical  romance  relating 
to  Lancelot  —  namely,  the  lost  French  original  of  the  Middle 
High  German  Lanzelet  —  but,  apart  from  its  literary  inferiority, 
Lancelot  and  Guinevere  were  not  lovers  in  that  romance;  yet  it 
was  the  story  of  their  intrigue  that  had  rendered  the  former  an 
object  of  general  interest  to  contemporary  readers.  Notwithstanding 
his  adoption  of  Chretien's  ideas  in  regard  to  his  hero,  as  the  lover 

the  influence  of  the  Estoire,  although  the  subject  of  his  descent  from 
David  is  not  here  touched  upon.  For  a  discussion  of  Lancelot's  gene- 
alogy cp.,  particularly,  Bruce,  RR,  IX,  250 ff.  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  218ff., 
has,  also,  discussed  the  genealogies  of  Galahad  and  Lancelot,  but  he 
makes  the  serious  mistake  of  failing  to  recognize  that,  just  as  Galahad 
typifies  Christ,  his  genealogy  is  equated  with  Christ's.  As  we  have 
seen  above,  the  fact  that  the  name  of  the  head  of  his  paternal  line, 
viz.  Nascien,  is  taken  from  the  genealogy  of  Christ  (St.  Matthew,  1) 
—  so,  too,  with  that  of  his  uncle  Eliezer  puts  the  matter  beyond  doubt. 
Consequently,  what  the  French  scholar  says  in  regard  to  the  influence 
of  Abyssinian  tradition  on  this  genealogy  is  beside  the  mark.  The 
fact  that  the  original  Grail  Winner,  Perceval,  was  connected  with  the 
Grail  king  on  his  mother's  side  is,  also,  to  be  reckoned  with  in  the 
discussion  of  Galahad's  ancestry. 

74  On  this  subject,  cp.  P.  Martens,  "Zur  Lanzelotsage,"  E.  Boehmer's 
Romanische  Studien,  V,  643 ff.  (1880)  and,  especially,  Lot,  Lance- 
lot,  pp.  166  ff.  (1918). 

It  may  be  observed  here,  once  for  all,  that  the  sources  of  the 
Lancelot  are  purely  literary.  There  is  no  ground  whatever  for  be- 
lieving that  our  author  had  access  to  any  oral  traditions  of  the  Celts 
concerning  Lancelot  or  any  of  the  other  characters.  This  view  is, 
also,  that  of  Sommer,  I,  p.  VII  and  Lot,  op.  cit.  p.  182,  note  1. 

76  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXI2,  276,  conjectures 
that  the  primitive  Lancelot  was  in  verse,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
to  support  this  conjecture. 


404  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  the  queen,  and,  above  all,  as  a  lover  who  exemplified  impeccably 
the  rules  of  the  amour  courtois,  the  author  of  the  new  prose  work 
took,  with  modifications,  from  this  earlier  biographical  romance, 
the  account  of  Lancelot's  origin  and  childhood  and  of  his  first 
departure  from  his  foster-mother's  dwelling  in  search  of  adventure. 
In  the  lost  poem,  as  we  see  from  the  German  adaptation,  it  was 
told  how  Lancelot  was  the  son  of  Ban,  king  of  Benoic,76  and  how 
by  an  uprising  of  his  subjects  the  latter  was  driven  out  of  his 
kingdom.  On  his  flight,  however,  Ban  dies  from  his  wounds.  His 
wife,  who  was  tending  him  at  the  time  of  his  death,  had  laid  the 
infant  Lancelot  down  under  a  tree,  when  she  went  to  her  husband's 
side.  Whilst  she  was  thus  occupied,  a  water-fairy  carried  off  the 
child  in  a  mist  to  fairy-land  (Maiden-land)  and  there  brought 
him  up  in  ignorance  of  his  name  and  rank  and  of  everything, 
indeed,  that  pertained  to  knighthood,  with  the  ultimate  purpose 
of  obtaining  through  him,  when  grown,  the  deliverance  of  her 
son  from  an  enchanter.  Accordingly,  when  he  was  fifteen  years 
old,  the  fairy  permitted  him  to  ride  forth  to  seek  his  fortunes, 
but  she  would  not  reveal  to  him  his  name  or  parentage  until 
he  had  conquered  a  certain  knight,  the  strongest  in  the  world  — 
the  enemy  of  her  son.  With  these  initial  incidents  all  resemblance 
between  the  Lanzelet  and   the  Lancelot  virtually  ceases.77      The 

78  Pant,  King  of  Genewis,  he  is  called  in  the  Lanzelet,  Pant, 
however,  is  evidently  the  same  name  as  Ban,  being  derived  from  the 
oblique  form  (Bant)  to  a  nominative,  Banz  (variant  of  Bans).  Moreover, 
Lot,  Romania,  XXIV,  335  (1895),  has  pointed  out  that  the  German 
poet's  Genewis  is  identical  with  Chretien's  Gomeret  (Bans  de  Gomeret, 
Erec,  1975)  and  with  Benoic,  all  three  being  alterations  of  Gwynedd, 
the  Welsh  name  for  North  Wales.  Cp.,  too,  the  same  scholar's  Lan- 
celot, p.  147,  note  8,  where  the  alternative  derivation  from  Breton 
Guenet  (Modern  French  V amies)  is  rejected.  On  these  matters  and 
on  Brugger's  identification  of  Ban  with  Scotch  Bain  (accepted  by 
Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  166,  note  4,  though  not  by  the  present  writer)  see 
his  article  in  the  Morf  Festschrift,  pp.  53 ff.  (Halle,  1905)  and  Bruce, 
RR,  X,  55,  note. 

77  P.  Martens,  op.  cit.,  pp.  690ff.  lists,  it  is  true,  some  additional 
similarities  for  the  part  that  follows  Lancelot's  setting  forth  on  his 
adventures.  They  are  all  slight,  however,  as  he,  himself,  acknowledges, 
and,  in  most  cases,    mere  commonplaces   of  Arthurian  romance.     The 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  405 

reader,  however,  will  have  observed  that  the  author  of  the  prose 
work  has  not  adopted  even  these  meagre  borrowings  without  alte- 
ration, for  he  has  rationalized  the  fairy  into  a  great  lady  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  explained  her  lake  as  a  mere  illusion.  Above 
all,  in  order  to  relieve  his  hero's  father  of  the  discredit  of  a  do- 
mestic rebellion,  he  represents  this  father's  disasters  and  unhappy 
end  as  due  not  to  his  own  tyranny,  but  to  the  aggressions  of  an 
unjust  foe,   King  Claudas  of  the   Desert  Land,78   who  becomes, 

same  remark  applies  substantially  to  Lot's  list,  op.  cit.,  pp.  167f.  An 
exception  should,  probably  be  made,  however,  in  the  case  of  the  name 
of  Lancelot's  friend,  Galehaut,  son  of  the  beautiful  giantess  (cp.  Som- 
mer,  III,  201,  etc.).  In  the  Lanzelet  (1.  7544)  there  is  a  young  giant 
named  Esealt,  which  represents  doubtless  a  distortion  of  Galehalt  in 
its  lost  French  source. 

79  Identified  with  the  province  of  Berry  in  France,  III,  3.  In 
Old  French  herrie  meant  "desert  plain,"  hence  by  popular  etymology 
the  province  of  Berry  becomes  the  "Terre  Deserte."  This  is  so  al- 
ready in  the  chanson  de  geste,  Girart  de  Roussillon.  Cp.  Lot, 
p.  189,  note  1.  —  Claudas's  capital  was  Bohorges  (Bourges)  and  he 
was,  himself,  "horn  le  roi  de  Gaule  qui  ore  est  apelee  Franche."  Ban's 
kingdom  was  contiguous  to  Claudas's  —  i.  e.  it  was  in  France.  In 
the  Lanzelet  it  was  placed  in  Great  Britain. 

Among  other  speculations  as  to  places  and  persons  that  are  named 
in  the  beginning  of  the  Lancelot,  P.  Paris,  Romans  de  la  Table 
Ronde,  II,  109 ff.,  suggests  (p.  109)  that  Claudas  is  identical  with 
Clovis  or  his  successor,  Clothaire  I.  Brugger,  Morf  Festschrift,  p.  57, 
note  2  (1905)  and  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.}  XL2,  pp.  55ff.  (1912) 
accepts  the  identification  with  Clovis  and  conjectures  that  the  Claudas 
story  represents  an  actual  oral  tradition  concerning  Clovis.  In  his 
appendix  on  Claudas's  name,  Lancelot,  pp.  856 f.,  Lot  speaks  with 
some  severity  of  this  identification.  I  agree  with  him  as  to  the  histo- 
rical tradition.  Nevertheless,  in  certain  Tristan  MSS.  we  find  a  form 
very  near  Claudas,  viz.  Claudes  (Claudex)  as  a  variant  of  the  name 
of  the  first  Christian  king  of  Gaul,  where  other  MSS.  have  Clodovex, 
Clodeus,  Clovis,  etc.  Cp.  Loseth,  Le  roman  en  prose  de  Tristan, 
p.  6,  note  4,  and  p.  477.  It  seems  to  me,  then,  that  the  name  Claudas 
may,  after  all,  be  a  variant  for  Clodeus  (Clovis).  If  this  is  so,  it 
came  to  the  prose  Lancelot,  no  doubt,  either  from  the  lost  chanson 
de  geste,  which  I  have  suggested  above,  or  from  some  chronicle  source. 

Lot,  loc.  cit.,  derives  the  name  from  the  same  Ethiopian  source 
as  Agloval.  Cp.  p.  401,  note  67,  above.  But  the  objections  which  I 
have  raised  to  that  derivation  apply,  also,  to  this. 


406  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  course,  a  character  of  the  first  importance  in  the  romance.'* 
On  the  death  of  Ban's  brother,  the  older  Bohort,  Claudas  seizes 
the  kingdom  of  Gannes  (Bohort's  realm),  also,  and  thus  usurps 
the  patrimony  of  Lionel  and  the  younger  Bohort,  as  well  as  of 
Lancelot. 

Next  come  the  episodes  concerning  the  usurper's  strife  with 
Bohort's  children  and  with  his  own  rebellious  barons.  These  epi- 
sodes delay  the  narrative  of  Lancelot's  career,  which,  in  the  Lanze- 
let,  develop  without  interruption  after  the  pattern  of  the  usual 
biographical  romance.  They  show,  however,  such  vigor  and  so  firm 
a  grasp  on  reality  that  a  different  hand  from  that  which  penned 
the  Lancelot  enfances  seems  discernible  in  them.  In  any  event, 
their  similarity  to  the  chansons  de  geste  in  style  and  spirit  is 
manifest  and  it  appears  highly  probable  that  we  have  combined 
here  with  the  original  Lancelot  theme  an  adaptation  of  some  lost 
poem  of  that  species.80 

Aside  from  the  general  influence  of  Chretien's  Lancelot,  noted 
above,  specific  use  is  made  of  this  romance  in  the  so-called  Charete 
section  of  the  prose  Lancelot.81  The  basis  of  this  section,  indeed, 
as  we  have  seen,  is  a  free  paraphrase  of  Chretien's  poem.82  The 
influence  of  the  same  writer's  Perceval  is,  likewise,  strongly  stamp- 
ed on  the  Grail   interpolations  of  our  romance83   —  especially, 

79  Lot,  loc.  cit.,  points  out,  too,  how  the  author  of  the  Lancelot 
annuls  the  relationship  which,  according  to  the  Lanzelet,  subsisted 
between  Lancelot  and  Arthur,  and  how  he  deprives  Guinevere  of  the 
son,  Lohot,  who  is  accredited  to  her  in  the  Lanzelet,  11.  6875  ff.? 
as  in  some  other  romances.  It  would  have  seemed  odious,  if  Lance- 
lot's adultery  had  been  committed  with  the  wife  of  a  kinswoman,  and 
Guinevere,  herself,  in  this  intrigue,  would  have  found  a  son  em- 
barrassing. 

80  On  the  discussion  of  these  matters  see  RR,  X,  48  ff. 

81  IV,  155  ff. 

82  For  discussions  of  this  Charete  section,  its  composition,  its 
relations  to  Chretien's  poem,  the  significance  of  the  interwoven  episodes, 
cp.,  respectively,  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  170ff.  (1918)  and  Bruce,  RR,  X, 
57  ff.  (1918).  The  former  assumes  single  authorship  for  this  section 
as  for  the  entire  Lancelot-Graal  corpus,  the  latter  plural  authorship. 

88  The  influence  is  partly  direct,  partly  indirect  (through  the 
Queste).    Lot,  op.  cit.  pp.  173f.,  has  enumerated  a  number  of  details 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  407 

on  the  narrative  of  Gawain's  visit  to  the  Grail  castle  (Corbenic).84 
Moreover,  it  is,  doubtless,  owing  to  a  reminiscence  of  the  Yvain 
(11.  2804  ff.)  that,  in  the  prose  Lancelot,  difficulties  that  arise 
in  Lancelot's  love  affairs  with  the  queen  drive  him  on  various  oc- 
casions85 into  a  frenzy. 

The  continuations  of  Chretien's  Perceval  by  Pseudo-Wauchier 
and  Wauchier  de  Denain,  respectively,  are,  likewise,  among  the 
undoubted  sources  of  the  Lancelot.  The  self-playing  chessmen  of 
the  Forest  Perdue  (III,  151f.)  are  borrowed  from  Wauchier  (11. 
22442ff.).86  That  the  band  of  questers  in  Gawain's  long  search 
for  Lancelot  should  have  been  fixed  at  forty  (IV,  321)  appears 
to  betray,  also,  the  influence  of  the  same  writer,  (1.  31421),  and 
similarly  with  the  luminous  apparition  of  the  Grail  in  the  forest 
(V,  392),  —  far  from  its  habitual  shrine  in  the  Grail  castle,  — 
through  which  the  wounds  of  Perceval  and  Hector  are  healed.87 
In  this  last  case,  it  is  true,  the  conception  may  have  reached  our 
romance  through  the  Queste  (VI,  42),  as  an  intermediary.88 


in  other  parts  of  the  Lancelot  which  he  thinks  were  derived  from 
Chretien's  Perceval,  the  sending  of  vanqiushed  knights  by  the  hero 
to  Arthur  or  Guinevere,  the  characterization  of  Kay,  numerous  proper 
names,  etc.  In  many  cases,  however,  it  is  impossible  to  say  whether 
the  derivation  is  direct. 

84  IV,  339  ff.  Here,  as  in  Chretien's  Perceval,  11.  3047  ff.,  the 
lord  of  the  Grail  castle  is  an  unnamed  maimed  king  5  moreover,  as  in 
Chretien's  poem,  11.  3182  ff.,  the  Grail  is  borne  in  by  a  girl.  Contrast 
with  this  Lancelot's  visit,  V,  105  ff.,  where  the  lord  of  the  Grail 
castle  is  called  Pelles  and  is  not  maimed. 

85  in,  414,  IV,  155  (cp.  p.  151),  V,  381. 

86  For  the  affiliation  of  the  various  versions  of  this  motif  cp. 
RR,  IX,  375 f.  In  the  Dutch  Walewein  (edited  by  W.  J.  A.  Jonck- 
bloet,  Leiden,  1846),  which  G.  Paris,  Histoire  UtUraire  de  la  France, 
XXX,  82  ff.,  has  analyzed,  under  the  title  of  Gavain  et  I'echiquier, 
there  is  a  marvellous  chessboard,  but  no  self-playing  chessmen  attached 
to  it.  For  this  motif,  however,  see  the  Dutch  Lancelot,  Book  II, 
11.  18391  ff.,  which  derives  it  from  the  prose  Lancelot,  III,   151  f. 

Cp.  Conte  del  Graal,  11.  34407  ff. 

Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  175f.,  cites  some  additional  points  of  in- 
fluence which  appear  to  me  more  doubtful  —  especially,  those  that  relate 
to  style.    The  fact  that  the  prose  Lancelot  (as  it  stands  in  our  MSS.) 


87 
88 


408  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

From  Pseudo-Wauchier  (11.  15892ff.)  is  derived  the  incident 
(III,  272),  when  Arthur  wounds  himself  at  the  table  whilst  he  is 
leaning  on  a  knife  in  melancholy  revery  over  the  failure  of  his 
knights  to  undertake  the  promised  quest  for  Lancelot.89  So,  too, 
Avith  the  whole  conception  of  Gawain's  visit  to  the  Grail  Castle. 
Furthermore,  it  was  because  of  the  example  of  Pseudo-Wauchier 
and  Wauchier  that  in  the  Lancelot  there  is  only  one  king90  at 
Corbenic  (the  Grail  Castle)  and  that,  except  in  the  episode  of 
Gawain's  visit,  just  referred  to,  this  king  is  unmaimed.  The 
idea  that  the  blight  which  rested  on  the  Grail  land  and  which  only 
the  predestined  Grail  knight  could  remove  was  due  to  the  do- 
lorous stroke  of  a  mysterious  sword  is  drawn  by  the  author  of 
Lancelot's  visit  to  Corbenic  directly  from  the  Estoire,91  but  it 
was  ultimately  derived  from  Pseudo-Wauchier,92  and,  doubtless, 
the  author  of  the  episode  in  question  was  familiar  with  it,  also, 
in  its  original  form.93 

With  the  exception  of  the  compositions  of  Chretien,  Pseudo- 
Wauchier  and  Wauchier,  no  romance,  perhaps,  has  supplied  more 
important  materials  for  episodes  of  the  Lancelot  than  Raoul  de 


combines  passages  of  a  mystical  import  with  others  bordering  on  license 
he  attributes  to  the  example  of  Wauchier.  — ■  Lot  is  probably  right, 
pp.  180  f.,  in  ascribing  also  to  imitation  of  Wauchier  some  points  in 
which  the  Lancelot  might  seem  to  be  imitating  Li  Biaus  Descouneus. 
99  On  this  incident  cp.,  more  fully,  RR,  X,  54,  note  119. 

90  Cp.  IV,  339ff.  (Gawain's  visit),  V.  105 ff.  (Lancelot's),  139ff., 
294  ff.  (Bohort's  two  visits). 

91  The  Estoire  is  explicitly  cited,   V,  110,  as  the  source. 

92  11,  20288ff. 

93  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  177  ff.,  cites  a  few  other  points,  which  are 
less  certain.  He  lays  stress,  especially,  on  the  indebtedness  of  the 
Lancelot,  IV,  156,  and  the  Queste,  VI,  6,  to  Pseudo-Wauchier, 
11.  1261  Off.,  for  the  well-known  motif  according  to  which  Arthur 
would  not  sit  down  to  table  on  feast-days,  until  some  adventure  was 
announced.  Pseudo-Wauchier  may  well  be  the  source  here,  since  the 
authors  of  the  two  passages  in  question  undeniably  show  elsewhere  a 
knowledge  of  his  work,  but  Lot  overlooks  the  fact  that  this  motif  is, 
also,  found  in  Chretien's  Perceval,  11.  2784  ff.,  whence  Pseudo-Wauchier, 
doubtless,  derives  it. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  409 

Houdenc's  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez.91  From  this  source  (11. 3663ff., 
433  Iff.)  comes  the  famous  incident  of  the  enchanted  carols  in  the 
Forest  Perdue  (V,  123f.,  148 ff.)>  to  which  for  a  time  even  Lancelot 
succumbs,  but  the  spell  of  which  he  ultimately  undoes,  as  the 
best  knight  in  the  world.  So,  too,  with  the  vows  of  the  knights 
at  Brangoire's  court  to  perform  various  fantastic  exploits  for  the 
sake  of  their  ladies  (IV,  266 ),95  and  the  adventures  of  Yvain  and 
Bohort  which  begin  with  the  exaction  of  a  kiss  from  the  former 
by  a  hideous  woman  (V,  127 ).96 

The  reading  of  the  authors  of  the  Lancelot,  however,  was, 
of  course,  not  confined  to  Arthurian  romance,97  and  it  is  accordingly 
not  strange  if  we,  also,  find  here  and  there  traces  of  the  influence 
of  the  other  forms  of  literature  that  were  then  most  in  vogue  — 


94  The  best  study  of  the  relations  of  the  two  romances  is  G.  Huet's 
"Le  Lancelot  en  prose  et  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez",  Romania,  XL1, 
518  ff.  (1912).  In  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer  he  proves  that 
the  Lancelot  is  the  borrower.  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt., 
XXVIII  *,  59,    note  107  (1905),    was   inclined  to   the   contrary  view. 

96  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  186,  speaks  of  this  episode  as  inspired  by 
the  "gabs"  (boasts),  of  Charlemagne  and  his  knights  in  the  Pelerinage 
de  Charlemagne.  Huet,  op.  cit.,  p.  531,  had  already  shown,  however, 
that  the  Meraugis,  11.  1777 ff.,  was  the  source. 

96  Cp.  Meraugis,  11.  1447—2632  and  11.  4445ff.  Huet,  op.  cit., 
pp.  524 ff.,  has  analyzed  and  discussed  the  relation  of  these  episodes 
to  Lancelot,  V,  127ff. 

97  In  addition  to  the  romances  which  I  have  noted  above,  Lot, 
Lancelot,  pp.  182  ff.,  counts  among  the  sources  of  the  Lancelot  the 
Mort  Arthur  section  of  the  Didot-Perceval  (J.  L.  Weston's  Legend 
of  Sir  Perceval,  II,  82 ff.).  In  the  RR,  IX,  390f.,  however,  I  have 
tried  to  prove  that  the  episodes  in  question  —  Arthur's  wars  against 
Claudas  and  the  Romans,  V,  335 ff.  —  are  really  based  on  the  account 
of  his  wars  with  Lancelot  and  the  Romans  in  the  Mort  Artu,  VI, 
317  ff.,  supplemented  by  Wace,  11.  10341  ff.  These  episodes  of  the 
Mort  Artu,  in  turn,  were  developed  indisputably  from  the  lost  French 
original  of  Layamon's  Brut.  Cp.  RR,  IV,  452  ff.  In  any  event, 
Wace,  alone,  would  have  sufficed  as  the  basis  of  these  Lancelot  epi- 
sodes. —  On  the  relation  of  Lancelot,  V,  335  ff.,  to  the  political 
situation  in  the  early  thirteenth  century,  Lot,  p.  185,  note  2,  has 
some  interesting  remarks.  He  is  probably  right  when  he  maintains 
that  Frollo  is  here  made  a  German  because  of  French  hostility  to  the 


410  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

saints'  lives,98  chcmsojns  de  geste,93  romances  of  antiquity.100  In 
a  passage  which  is  manifestly  from  the  hand  of  a  cleric  —  namely, 
the  one  concerning  the  interpretation  of  Galehaut's  allegorical 
dream  (IV,  23)  —  there  is  even  a  reminiscence  of  a  philosophical 
treatise,101  Alexander  of  Neckham's  De  Naturis  Rerum  (ch.  74). 
The  passage  in  this  work,  it  is  true,  which  caught  our  cleric's 
attention  contained  not  the  record  of  a  scientific  observation,  but 
one  of  the  fictitious  vaticinations  of  the  Arthurian  enchanter  and 
prophet,  Merlin  —  in  this  case,  with  regard  to  the  destined  migra- 
tion of  wisdom  from  Oxford  to  Ireland. 

Taking  the  Lancelot,  as  it  is  preserved  to  us  in  our  extant 
manuscripts,  it  is  unquestionably  one  of  the  most  rambling  pro- 
ductions in  European  literature.  Coherence  had  never  been  a  virtue 
even  of  the  metrical  romances,  but,  after  all,  if  we  exclude  the 
Conte  del  Graal  (Chretien's  Perceval  and  its  continuations),  they 
had,  at  least,  been  compositions  of  moderate  length,  whereas  in  the 
Lancelot,  as  stated  above,  we  have,  with  one  or  two  exceptions,102 
the  longest  work  of  fiction  in  the  whole   history  of   European 


German  Empire  at  that  time,  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that 
the  battle  of  Bouvines  (1214)  had  already  been  fought. 

Some  episodes  of  the  Lancelot  are,  doubtless,  derived  from  Ar- 
thurian and  other  romances,  now  lost.  P.  Paris,  RTR,  IV,  208, 
note  1,  conjectured  that  this  was  the  case  with  the  episode  of  Gawain's 
imprisonment  by  Caradoc  in  the  Dolorous  Tower,  IV,  85  ff.  It  seems 
quite  likely,  too,  that  Agloval  (Perceval's  brother)  was  drawn  from  some 
lost  metrical  romance.  These  matters,  however,  are  purely  speculative, 
so  that  there  is  no  profit  in  lingering  over  them. 

98  Lot,  p.  186,  sees  in  the  episode  of  the  mad  Lancelot,  living 
unrecognized  and  contemned  at  Corbenic,  an  imitation  of  the  legend 
of  St.  Alexis. 

99  Ibid.     Lot   cites  Girart   de   Roussillon  among  the   sources. 

100  The  story  of  Aeneas  which  Lancelot,  V,  217,  saw  painted 
on  the  wall  at  Morgan's  palace  is  more  likely  to  have  been  derived 
from  the  French  romance  Eneas  than  from  Vergil.  So,  too,  with  the 
name  of  the  enchantress,  Camille,  III,  406.  The  name  Serses  (Cerses) 
=  Xerxes,  V,  144,  is  doubtless  taken  from  the  Roman  de  Troie, 
il.  6854,  et  passim. 

101  This  is  pointed  out  by  Lot,  p.  186,  note  8. 
108  French  romances  of  the  seventeenth  century. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  411 

fiction,  and,  in  varying  degrees,  we  encounter  in  every  part  of 
the  romance  the  same  desultory  combination  of  incoherent  elements. 
To  unify  and  at  the  same  time  to  impart  an  air  of  verisimilitude 
to  the  narrative,  an  apparently  coherent  system  of  dating  the  move- 
ments of  the  hero,  such  as  one  might  find  in  the  chronicle  of 
an  actual  historical  personage,  is  adopted  —  especially  in  the 
Galehaut  section.  Nevertheless,  the  effect,  of  this  device  is  feeble 
and  its  very  existence  passed  unobserved  until  recently.103  On  the 
other  hand,  the  principle,  which  is  applied,  more  or  less,  every- 
where in  the  Lancelot  of  interlacing  the  various  episodes  is  ob- 
vious enough.10*  An  episode  is  interrupted,  to  be  resumed  later  on 
in  the  midst  of  another  episode,  whose  further  development  is 
thus  postponed  —  to  be  resumed,  perhaps,  in  its  turn,  in  the  midst 
of  still  a  third  episode.  The  structural  unity,  however,  which  re- 
sults from  this  second  device,  is  purely  mechanical,  since  the  inter- 
woven episodes,  for  the  most  part,  have  no  organic  connection  with 
one  another  and  the  essential  incoherence  of  the  narrative  ele- 
ments is  still  patent.  The  device  becomes,  then,  most  frequently, 
a  mere  trick  to  pique  the  curiosity  of  the  reader  by  breaking  off 
abruptly  the  adventures  of  one  character  and  turning  to  those  of 
another  at  a  point  where  the  former  appear  to  be  approaching  a 
denouement.  There  is  never  any  trouble  about  prolonging  the 
narrative,  for,  under  these  conditions,  the  author  has  no  scruples 
in  regard  to  sudden  transitions  or  the  introduction  of  new  char- 
acters. Above  all,  the  quest  motif,  which  Chretien  had  employ- 
ed,105 was  always  at  hand  to  give  a  new  start  to  the  flagging  story, 
and  nothing  else  is  so  much  responsible  for  the  inordinate  length 
of  our  romance  as  the  frequent  application  of  this  motif,  with 
its  inevitable  temptations  to  accumulate  to  an  indefinite  extent 
disconnected  adventures.  A  number  of  knights  set  forth  in  search 

108  Cp.  Lot,  Lancelot,  ch.  III.  He  calculates  (p.  35)  that  the 
action  from  Lancelot's  arrival  at  Arthur's  court  to  the  end  of  Sommer's 
first  volume  covers  three  years  and  four  months. 

104  Cp.  Lot,  ibid.  ch.  II.  The  inference  as  to  the  single  author- 
ship of  the  Lancelot,  however,  which  the  French  scholar  draws  from 
this  device  is  disputable.     Cp.  Bruce,  RR,  X,  380  f. 

105  Cp.,  particularly,   the   quest   for  Guinevere   in   his  Lancelot. 


412  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  the  hero,  say;  after  a  while  they  separate,  and  each  of  the 
original  company  has  his  own  series  of  combats  and  other"  moving 
accidents  by  flood  and  field"  —  in  most  cases,  entirely  independent 
of  the  rest.  Obviously,  under  such  circumstances,  the  bulk  of  the 
narrative  depends  merely  on  the  writer's  whim  as  to  the  number  of 
questers  he  will  put  on  the  hero's  track  and  the  number  of  adven- 
tures he  will  allow  any  individual  quester  to  achieve.  There  is 
no  organic  plan  to  be  interfered  with. 

Altogether,  the  only  true  unity  which  the  Lancelot  possesses 
is  a  certain  unity  of  spirit  which  pervades  the  whole,  as  it  per- 
vades the  Arthurian  romances,  in  general,  this  spirit  being  of 
a  kind  to  foster  an  idealistic  attitude  of  mind,  and  through  the 
exhibition  of  examples  of  knightly  valor  and  honor  and  noble 
conduct,  to  stimulate  the  reader  to  the  attainment  of  high  stand- 
ards of  physical  and  moral  excellence.106  From  the  modern  point 
of  view,  to  be  sure,  in  one  domain  of  morals  there  are  serious 
limitations  to  the  ideals  of  conduct  which  are  expressed  by  the 
romance  —  namely,  in  that  of  the  sexual  relations;  for,  in  the 
Lancelot,  as  in  the  metrical  romances,  love  is  practically  always 
illicit  and  often  adulterous.  The  hero's  passion  for  the  queen, 
which  furnishes  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  work  is,  of  course,  adulter- 
ous, and  the  divine  champion  of  religion  and  chastity  (Galahad) 
is  himself  the  fruit  of  an  irregular  and  transient  union.  Needless 
to  say  that  Arthur  is  no  better  than  his  spouse,  as  is  shown  by 
his  affairs  with  Camille  and  the  false  Guinevere.107  These  in- 
stances are  the  most  conspicuous,  but  many  others  occur  in  the 
course  of  the  narrative.  The  immorality  of  the  underlying  con- 
ceptions concerning  the  relations  of  the  sexes  is  hidden,  to  some 
degree,  in  the  case  of  the  love-story  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere 

106  Cp.  the  excellent  remarks  on  this  subject  by  Grober  in  his 
Grundriss,  Band  II,  Abt.  I,  p.  998.  He  is  speaking  of  the  prose- 
romances,  in  general,  but  his  description  applies  with  especial  force 
to  the  Lancelot.  For  an  important  study  of  the  relations  of  the 
prose  Lancelot  (Charete  section,)  and  Chretien's  poem  to  each  other 
in  respect  to  spirit,  as  well  as  matter,  cp.  Mme.  Lot-Borodine  in 
F.  Lot's  Lancelot,  pp.  383  ff. 

107  III,  410ff.  and  IV,  10ff.,  respectively. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  413 

by  the  veneer  of  the  contemporary  code  of  courtly  love  which  this 
affair  illustrates,  but  it  appears  in  its  full  grossness  in  such  epi- 
sodes as  those  of  Agravain  and  the  "damoisele  roigneuse"  (III, 
318ff.)  and  of  Guerrehes  and  the  Lady  of  the  Pavilion  (V,  31  ff.). 

Since  the  merits  of  the  Lancelot  are  not  to  be  found  in  the 
skilful  disposition  or  development  of  the  narrative  as  a  whole, 
we  have  to  seek  them  in  the  individual  episodes.  Even  here,  how- 
ever, there  are  glaring  faults  enough  — -  especially,  the  fault  of 
monotony  through  endless  repetitions  of  the  same  motifs.™*  The 
number  of  cases  in  which  the  interest  of  an  encounter  between 
two  knights,  whether  in  tourney,  battle,  or  single  combat,  turns 
on  the  fact  that  the  adversaries  are  friends  or  kinsmen  who  are 
unaware  of  each  other's  identity109  must  run  into  the  scores.  And 
such  episodes  do  not  exhaust  the  instances  in  which  the  motif  of 
Lancelot's  own  incognito  is  exploited.  In  the  French  original  of 
the  Lanzelet  his  name  had  not  been  disclosed  to  him  until  he  had 
distinguished  himself  by  a  notable  achievement,  and  this  fairy-tale 
conception  is  taken  over  into  the  prose-romance,  despite  the  general 
rationalizing  tendency  of  the  latter.  It  is,  perhaps,  fitting  that 
this  hero,  who  was  so  long  nameless  in  his  youth,  should,  in  his 
maturer  years,  so  often  choose  to  disguise  himself  in  armor,  not 
his  own,  although  his  superiority  in  feats  of  arms  always  betrays 
his  identity  in  the  end. 

Apart  from  these  episodes  and  the  innumerable  combats  which 
differ  hardly  at  all  from  each  other,  many  other  instances  of 
repetition  might  be  cited  —  such  as  the  hero's  three  frenzies,110 


108  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  263 ff.,  gives  a  partial  list  of  nineteen 
such  cases. 

109  This  is,  of  course,  an  extension  of  the  wide-spread  Sohrab 
and  Rustem  motif  (combat  between  father  and  son).  A  few  of  the 
numerous  examples  of  the  extension  (combats  between  kinsmen  and 
friends)  are  given  in  M.  A.  Potter's  Sohrab  and  Rustem,  pp.  208  ff. 
(London,  1902).  Cp.  too,  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  268 f.  Occasionally, 
however,  in  the  Middle  Ages,  there  were  actually  such  encounters, 
mutual  recognition  being  prevented  by  the  armor.  Thus  William  the 
Conqueror   came   near   being  killed   by  his  son,  Robert  of  Normandv. 

110  III,  414ff.,   IV,  155,  V,  381. 


414  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

his  two  imprisonments  by  Morgan,111  the  carrying  off  of  knights 
by  giants  on  two  occasions,112  various  rescues  of  others  from  cap- 
tivity,113 Lancelot's  double  cohabitation  with  Pelles'  daughter,114 
etc.  In  Bohort  we  have  even  a  character  who  is  the  mere  replica 
of  another  character  —  namely,  Lancelot  —  and  whose  exploits 
are  all  virtually  pale  reflections  of  those  of  his  model.115  The 
same  thing  is  true,  in  some  degree,  also,  of  Hector. 

The  present  writer,  it  is  true,  believes  that  the  repetitions 
with  which  the  narrative  in  our  extant  MSS.  of  the  Lancelot 
is  diluted  are  due,  in  a  large  measure,  to  later  expansions  of  the 
primitive  romance,  but  probably  at  no  stage  of  its  existence  was 
the  Lancelot  entirely  free  from  this  weakness.  It  was  the  ro- 
mance, however,  in  its  expanded  and  cyclic  form  that  has  been 
read  ever  since  the  fourth  decade,  say,  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
and  in  our  analysis  it  is  needless,  therefore,  to  concern  ourselves 
with  any  earlier  hypothetical  form,  however  plausible,  in  which 
it  may  have  existed. 

The  Lancelot  is  frequently  marred,  still  further,  by  the  trivial 
or  absurdly  fantastic  nature  of  the  adventures.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  very  first  exploit  of  the  hero  after  his  arrival  at  Arthur's 
court,  when  he  pulls  the  lance-heads  and  sword  out  of  the  wounded 
Trahant's  body  and  swears  to  avenge  him  (Trahant)  "on  all  who 
liked  him  less  than  the  man  that  wounded  him".116  How  is  it 
possible  for  a  modern  reader  to  follow  with  any  interest  adventures 
based  on  a  pure  absurdity  like  this  that  possess  no  charm  either 
for  the  reason  or  the  imagination?  In  a  somewhat  similar  way, 
we  have  preceding  the  excellent  episodes  in  which  Gawain's  and 
Lancelot's  visits  to  Corbenic  are  respectively  described  the  pre- 


a11  IV,  124ff.,  V,  215ff.  ,12  IV,  88,  V,  88. 

113  HI,   167,  425,  etc.  n*  V,  110,  379. 

116  For  the  numerous  points   of  similarity   between  the    two,  cp 
KR,  X,  59 f. 

110  III,  1 2  6  ff .  In  one  of  the  episodes  which  constitute  the  sequel 
of  this  vow,  Lancelot  finds  himself  compelled  to  combat  a  knight  who 
has  just  entertained  him  most  hospitably.  Bound  by  his  vow,  however, 
he  drowns  his  host,  weeping  for  the  necessity  of  th~  act  as  he  commits 
it.     Cp.  IE,  199. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  415 

posterous  incident  of  the  girl  who  for  an  undefined  sin  is  con- 
demned to  sit  in  a  tub  of  scalding  water.117  In  a  few  cases  the 
extravagant  code  of  courtly  love  is  responsible  for  the  absurdities 
in  question,  as  when  Lancelot  barely  escapes  drowning  at  Camelot, 
his  gaze  being  fixed  so  ecstatically  on  Guinevere  that  he  does 
not  observe  that  his  horse  is  taking  him  into  the  river.118  In  the 
aimlessness  of  the  combats  which  make  up  so  much  of  its  narra- 
tive, the  Lancelot,  it  is  true,  does  not  differ  from  the  other  Ar- 
thurian romances,  —  only  here,  owing  to  the  length  of  the  work, 
the  accumulation  of  such  incidents  is  immensely  greater  than  any- 
where else. 

Instances  of  obtuseness  in  matters  of  art  being  so  numerous 
throughout  our  romance,  it  is,  perhaps,  not  surprising  that  we 
should  find  the  process  of  euhemerisation  applied  so  frequently 
to  the  highly  poetical  materials  of  folk-lore  origin  which  it  con- 
tains.119 As  we  have  seen,  even  in  the  beginning  of  the  romance, 
the  lake  of  Lancelot's  fairy  foster-mother  is  reduced  to  a  mere 
illusion.  She  and  her  damsel  do  still  retain  some  super-natural 
powers,120  but  by  the  end  of  the  work  they  have  been  stripped 
even  of  these.121  Similarly,  access  to  Sorelois,  which  is  modelled 
after  Chretien's  Gorre,  is  no  longer  by  such  perilous  approaches 
as  the  swordbridge  and  the  underwater  bridge,  but  by  ordinary 
causeways.122  In  the  episode  of  Guinevere's  visit  to  the  Fairies' 
Fountain,  even  the  fairies  are  explained  away  as,  in  reality,  simply 
beautiful  ladies.123    It  is  only   the  more  delicate  or  extravagant 

117  IV,  342  and  V,  106. 

118  III,  303.  This  incident  is  developed  from  Chretien's  Lance- 
lot, 11.  3685  ff. 

119  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  272  ff.,  lias  some  very  good  remarks  on 
this  subject,  although  lie  exaggerates  somewhat  the  thoroughness  of 
the  euhemerization. 

Cp.  Ill,  55 ff.,  where  Saraide,  obeying  her  mistress's  command, 
turns  Lionel  and  Bohort  into  greyhounds. 
121  V,  321  ff. 
132  III,  269f. 

IV,  305.  The  words  are:  "Cele  fontaine  estoit  apelee  la 
fontaine  a  fees,  pour  chou  que  cil  qui  en  la  forest  habitoient  disoient 
quil  y  auoient  veu  de  trop  beles  dames,  et  si  ne  pooit  on  riens  sauoir 


416  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

fancies  of  the  popular  imagination,  however,  that  we  find  rejected 
here  and  there  in  the  Lancelot;  for  the  more  palpable  forms  of 
enchantment  or  supernaturalism  we  meet  with  everywhere  in  the 
romance  —  in  the  copper  men  and  marvellous  shields  of  Dolorous 
Gard,124  in  the  terrors  of  Escalon  the  Tenebrous,125  in  the  spell 
that  rested  upon  the  Valley  of  False  Lovers,126  in  the  carols  and 
automatic  chessboard  of  the  Lost  Forest,127  etc. 

As  over  against  the  weaknesses  of  the  Lancelot  which  have 
been  analyzed  above,  one  may  point  to  a  great  number  of  episodes, 
especially,  in  the  Galehaut  section,  totalling  in  the  aggregate  some 
hundreds  of  pages,  which  constitute  admirable  specimens  of  the 
narrative  art.  This  is  true,  for  example,  of  the  whole  series  of 
episodes  that  extend  from  the  beginning  of  the  romance  down  to 
the  hero's  arrival  at  Arthur's  court,128  although  they  are  probably 
of  composite  origin.  These  pages  include,  inter  alia,  charming 
pictures  of  aristocratic  boyhood  (Lancelot  and  Lionel),129  and  in 
the  wars  of  Claudas  with  his  barons,130  a  narrative  of  feudal  strife, 
unsurpassed  in  vividness  and  energy  by  any  other  that  has  come 
down  to  us  from  the  Middle  Ages.  The  conquest  of  Dolorous 
Gard,131  though  somewhat  long  drawn  out,  is,  on  the  whole,  an 
excellent  re-telling  of  a  fairy-tale  exploit  in  terms  of  contemporary 
life.  Similar  adaptations  of  folk-lore  motifs,  effected  with  a  high 
degree  of  literary  skill,  are  the  episodes  of  the  False  Guinevere182 
and  of  the  Valley  of  the  False  Lovers.133  They  are  brought  close 
to  actual  life,  yet  retain  much  of  the  wild  charm  of  their  origin. 

In  the  later  divisions  of  the  romance,  also,  we  have  such 
striking  episodes  as  those  of  the  visits  of  Gawain  and  Lancelot  to 
Corbenic,  when  they  first  see  the  Holy  Grail,134  Lancelot's  second 


de  lor  estre,  et  por  ce  disoit  on  que  ce  estoient  fees."     Lot,  Lance- 
lot, pp.  272 f.,  has  called  attention  to  this  passage. 

124  III,  144,  150.  ,26  IV,   111. 


IV,  117ff.  ,27  V,  149ff. 


126  IV,  117ff.  ,2? 

128  HI,  125.  129  III,  33ff.,  50ff.,  lllff. 

1,0  ffl,  60ff.  131  III,  143ff. 

132  IV,  llOff.  18$  IV,  116ff. 

184  IV,  339  ff.,  V,  105ff. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  417 

imprisonment  at  the  hands  of  Morgan,135  and  the  hermit's  pre- 
diction of  Mordred's  evil  end,136  all  of  which  are  instinct  with 
imaginative  vigor. 

The  elements  in  the  Lancelot,  however,  which  have  won  for 
it  its  greatest  fame  are,  of  course,  the  love-story  of  Lancelot  and 
Guinevere  and  the  story,  inspired  by  classical  models,  of  the 
friendship  of  Galehaut  and  Lancelot.  Both  suffer,  it  is  true,  from 
the  want  of  concentration,  which  is  the  bane  of  the  romance  — 
the  main  themes  are  interwoven  with  all  sorts  of  extraneous  epi- 
sodes —  but,  after  all,  the  total  impression  produced  in  both  in- 
stances is  a  memorable  one.  The  part  of  the  love-story  which 
lies  within  the  Galehaut  section  of  the  work  represents  the  highest 
reach  in  literature  of  the  amour  courtois  in  its  purest  and  most 
serious  form.137  This  remark  applies  especially  to  the  scene138  — 
immortalized  by  Dante  in  the  Paolo  and  Francesca  episode  of  the 
Inferno  (V,  127 ff.)  —  in  which  Guinevere  bestows  on  her  lover 
the  crowning  kiss.139  The  picture  of  the  meek  submissiveness  of 
the  great  exemplar  of  chivalry  in  the  presence  of  his  mistress 
and  of  the  latter' s  arch  consciousness  of  her  power  possesses  an 
old-world  charm.  Admirable,  too,  is  the  episode  of  the  first  meeting 
of  the  two  lovers,140  with  the  fine  psychological  touch  by  which 
Guinevere  is  represented  as  pretending  dissatisfaction  with  the 
young  aspirant  to  knighthood,  in  order  that  she  may  hide  the 
really  profound  impression  which  he  has  made  upon  her. 

A  deeper  note,  however,  is  struck  in  this  love-story  in  the 
last  division  of  the  romance  (the  so-called  Agravam),  where  the 
queen's  jealousy  is  aroused141  by  Calles's  daughter  —  the  girl  who 
had  healed  Lancelot  in  the  poisoned  spring  incident.  The  author 
of  these  pages  has  his  eye  fixed  upon  nature,  rather  than  upon 
the  artificial  rules  of  the  amour  courtois,  and  so,  besides  the  pas- 

~Ta6  V,  215 ff.  ,G0  V,  284ff. 

137  Chaucer's  Troilus  and  Criseyde,  although  it,  too,  suffers, 
from  prolixity,  is,  of  course,  a  greater  work  of  art  than  the  Lancelot, 
but  it  contains  humorous  and  even  ironical  elements. 

198  III,  258  ff.,  but  one  should  read  also  the  preceding  passage, 
253 ff.  (the  dialogue  of  the  queen  with  Galeheut). 

189  HI,  263.  140  III,  125f.  ,41  V,  59ff. 


418  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sages  just  alluded  to,  we  have  such  excellent  scenes  as  the  one  in 
which  the  king  is  led  to  interpret  his  wife's  illness  as  purely  physi- 
cal, although  it  is  really  caused  by  her  anxiety  about  Lancelot,  or 
the  one  in  which  she  feigns  cheerfulness,  despite  the  sorrow  with 
which  her  heart  is  filled  on  her  lover's  account.142  The  variations 
which  are  wrought  on  this  theme  of  Guinevere's  jealousy  and  on 
an  additional  new  motif,  viz.  that  of  her  intimacy  with  Lancelot's 
kinsmen,  Bohort  and  Lionel,  impart  an  individuality  to  the  cha- 
racter in  this  last  division  of  the  romance  which  it  lacked  in  the 
earlier  divisions.143 

Altogether,  characterization  in  our  romance,  as  in  most  works 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  is  elementary,  but  the  principal  figures, 
although  dim  in  outline,  as  compared  with  the  best  masterpieces 
of  later  ages,  have  a  certain  grandeur  of  their  own.  This  is  true 
not  only  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  but  of  Galehaut  —  noble  and 
melancholy,  to  whom  the  foreknowledge  of  his  early  death  in- 
volves no  pang  so  bitter  as  the  thought  of  his  separation  from  his 
friend  —  and  of  Claudas  —  the  most  complex  character  in  the 
romance  —  a  leader  of  men,  astute,  avaricious,  jealous  of  power, 
and  full  of  ruthless  energy  in  the  prosecution  of  his  evil  ambitions, 
yet  capable  of  a  deep  paternal  tenderness  and  of  acts  of  generosity 
towards  the  youthful  foes  whom  he  has  wronged.144 


142 


V,  60 ff.  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  277,  calls  attention,  also,  to  the 
fine  scene  later  in  the  Lancelot,  V,  193f.  where  Guinevere  reproaches 
herself  with  being  the  cause   of  Lancelot's  failing  in  the  Grail  quest. 

141  These  two  motifs  are  fundamental  in  the  Mart  Artu.  There 
are  so  many  similarities  between  that  branch  and  certain  episodes  in 
this  part  of  the  Lancelot  that  1  believe  they  are  by  the  same  author. 
For  a  detailed  discussion  of  the  subject  cp.  RR,  X,  97 ff. 

In  the  romance,  itself,  III,  26  f.,  this  mixture  of  good  and 
evil  qualities  is  commented  on  and  the  respective  qualities  are  enume- 
rated. The  passage  is  a  remarkable  one  and  gives  us  a  life-like  por- 
trait of  Claudas.  One  gets  the  impression  that  some  actual  personage, 
so  to  speak,  sat  for  this  picture. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  419 

4.  La  Queste  del  Saint  Graal. 

As  was  stated  above,145  the  Queste  del  Saint  Graal  is  the 
companion-romance  to  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal,  the  latter  being 
the  early  history  of  the  Holy  Grail  down  through  the  conversion 
of  Britain  by  Joseph  and  other  members  of  the  Grail  company, 
the  former  a  narrative  of  the  quest  for  the  sacred  vessel  by  certain 
knights  of  Arthur's  court  in  that  monarch's  reign,  some  four 
hundred  years  after  the  conversion.146  We  have  seen  that  in  the 
Estoire  references  forward  to  incidents  in  the  Queste  are  frequent. 
In  a  similar  manner,  in  the  Queste,  references  backwards  to  in- 
cidents in  the  Estoire  are  also  frequent  —  indeed,  there  is  one 
long  passage  (about  the  spindles  in  Solomon's  ship)  in  the  former 
that  is  taken  over  from  the  latter  with  but  little  change  of  word- 
ing.147 From  the  nature  of  the  case,  moreover,  the  main  sources 
of  the  two  branches  were  bound  to  be  the  same  —  namely,  Chre- 
tien's Verceval  and  its  first  two  continuations,148  besides  Robert  de 
Boron's  Joseph  —  since  these  were  the  only  works  on  the  Grail, 
except  Chretien's  lost  livre,  that  had  been  composed  up  to  that 

146  Cp.  p.  374ff.,  above.  I  have  discussed  there  everything  per- 
taining to  the  mutual  relations  of  the  two  romances.  The  Queste  is 
printed,  VI,  3—199  in  Sommer's  Vulgate  Version, 

14 *  Cp.  Queste,  VI,  62,  where  Mordrain,  who  was  so  prominent 
in  the  Estoire  and  who  dies  in  the  Queste,  is  said  to  have  lived 
this  number  of  years. 

147  On  this  passage,  VI,  151 — 161,  and  the  cross-references  be- 
tween the  two  branches  cp.  p.  376,  note  3,  above. 

148  The  continuation  of  Pseudo-Wauchier  is  much  the  most  im- 
portant single  source  for  the  Queste,  barring  Robert's  Joseph,  from 
which  the  definitely  Christian,  mystical,  conception  of  the  Grail  was 
derived.  In  MLN,  XXX,  pp.  395  f.,  note  29,  I  have  already  noted 
the  indebtedness  of  the  Queste  to  Pseudo-Wauchier  in  the  following 
points:  1.  The  Fisher  King  (Pelles)  is  not  maimed,  (VI,  5,  98,  114). 
2.  The  Grail  is  brought  into  the  hall  supernaturally,  and  not  by 
attendants  (VI,  13).  3.  The  dolorous  stroke  which  causes  the  blight 
of  the  land,  (VI,  146  f.).  4.  The  importance  ascribed  to  the  joining 
of  the  sword,  (VI,  187 f.).  5.  The  chapel  and  the  bodyiess  hand 
(VI,  108). 

Perceval's  sister  is  doubtless  derived  direct  from  Wauchier,  her 
inventor.     On  this  character  in  the  Queste  cp.,  especially,   Madame 


420  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

time.149  The  minor  sources,  however,  though  of  the  same  general 
character,  are  less  varied  in  the  case  of  the  Queste1™  than  in  the 
case  of  the  Esioire. 

We  need  hardly  repeat  here161  that  the  purpose  of  the  author 
of  the  Queste,  in  supplanting  Perceval,  the  earlier  Grail  Winner, 
with  his  new  creation,  Galahad,  was  to  make  the  Grail  knight  an 
incarnation  of  his  own  rigid  ideals  of  asceticism.  No  person  who 
failed  to  fulfill  the  requirements  of  these  ideals  seemed  to  him 

Lot-Borodine  in  Lot's  Lancelot,  pp.  432  ff.  Madame  Lot  regards 
her  as  a  reincarnation  of  the  Virgin  Mary. 

As  to  these  borrowings,  see,  still  further,  RR,  IX,  367,  note  77. 
On  the  character,  Pelles,  who  originated  probably  with  the  author  of 
the  Queste,  cp.  Bruce,  "Pelles,  Pellinor,  and  Pellean  in  the  Old  French 
Arthurian  Romances",  MPh.,  XVI,  116  ff.  For  notes  on  Chretien  as 
a  source  of  the   Queste,  cp.  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  192f. 

149  I  have  combated  below,  Part  IV,  the  hypothesis  that  the  Per- 
lesvaus  was  earlier  than  the  Estoire  or  the  Queste.  Similarly,  with 
regard  to  the  hypothesis  that  the  Didot-Perceval  was  a  source  of 
these  romances,  cp.  ibid.,  below.  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  190,  on  the 
other  hand,  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  the  Didot-Perceval  (the 
extant  MSS.  of  which  include  a  brief  Mort  Arthur)  suggested  the 
idea  of  writing  the   Queste  and  Mort  Artu  of  the  Vulgate  cycle. 

150  When  Galahad  draws  the  sword  from  the  stone  after  Gawain 
and  Perceval  had  failed,  VI,  10,  this  is  imitated  from  Robert  de 
Boron,  II,  83,  in  which  Arthur  is  the  hero  of  a  similar  incident.  — 
The  incident  of  the  grateful  lion,  VI,  69,  is  taken,  doubtless,  from 
Chretien's  Yvain,  11.  3341  ff.  —  The  bestiaries  (e.g.  Hugo  of  St. 
Victor's)  and  saints'  lives  (St.  Eustace,  etc.)  had  already  made  the 
stag  as  a  symbol  of  Christ  familiar  to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  from  the 
time  of  the  patristic  writers  the  four  evangelists  had  been  identified 
with  the  man,  the  eagle,  the  lion  and  the  ox  of  Ezechiel,  I,  10.  Cp., 
on  these  subjects,  Alfred  Maury,  Croyances  et  Legendes  du  Moyen 
Aye,  pp.  257  ff.,  279ff.  (Paris,  1896).  These,  then,  are  the  sources 
of  Galahad's  adventure  in  the  forest,  VI,  166,  which,  in  turn,  is.  no 
doubt,  the  source  of  Estoire,  I,  257 ff.  and  Lancelot,  V,  249.  —  The 
episode  of  the  dead  girl  (Perceval's  sister)  whom  Lancelot  finds  in  a 
ship  with  a  scroll  in  her  hand  that  tells  her  history,  VI,  175,  is 
imitated  from  Historia  Apollonii  Regis  Tyri,  ch.  25 — 26.  (edited 
by  A.  Riese,  Leipzig,  1893)  —  the  story  of  the  hero's  daughter. 
Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  280 f. 

161  Cp.  p.  379,  above. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  421 

fitted  to  win  the  vessel  which  symbolized  the  most  sacred  mysteries 
of  the  Christian  religion.  Chastity,  however,  was  the  essential 
basis  of  asceticism,  and  Perceval,  as  the  writer  found  him  in 
Chretien  (11.  2030ff.)  and  Wauchier  (11.  25017ff.),  was  not  chaste. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  had,  of  course,  been  an  implication  of  Robert's 
Joseph  that  in  the  sequel  to  that  poem,  which  was  probably  never 
written,  his  Grail  hero  (whether  Perceval  or  another)  would  satisfy 
this  condition,  and  in  the  invention  of  Galahad,  the  author  of  the 
Queste  was  doubtless  merely  putting  into  effect  Robert's  conception. 
The  same  condition  is  likewise  applied  to  Perceval  and  Bohort, 
the  other  members  of  the  trinity  of  questers,152  who  share  with 
Galahad  the  mystic  vision  of  the  Grail,  but  who,  in  proportion 
to  their  lapses  from  the  ideal  perfection  of  chastity,153  are  inferior 
to  him  in  the  marks  of  divine  favor. 

It  may  well  be  that  the  contemporary  order  of  Knights  Temp- 
lars, also,  offered  suggestions  for  the  new  character,154  since  he, 
like  the  Templars,  is  a  monk-knight  —  ascetic  yet  militant.  But 
Galahad  is  even  more  than  that,  for  he  moves  on  a  semi-divine 
plane  and  typifies  Christ  himself;  indeed,  he  is  merely  Christ  in 
armor.155 


162  This  number  was  adopted  to  correspond  to  the  number  of 
the  Christian  godhead. 

153  Perceval  is  represented  as  chaste  in  act  (cp.  VI,  58),  but 
not  in  intention  (cp.  VI.  78).  No  mention  is  made  of  his  lapses  from 
virtue  that  had  been  recounted  in  Chretien  and  Wauchier.  —  Bohort, 
it  is  said,  (VI,  119),  was  unchaste  only  once,  viz.  in  the  affair  with 
Brangoire/s  daughter  (IV7,  270  ff.)  and  then  through  the  influence  of  magic. 

154  The  influence  of  this  order  on  the  description  of  the  Grail 
Knights  in  Wolfram's  Parzival,  Book  XVI,  11.  171,  201,  et  passim 
is,  of  course,  beyond  dispute.  Alfred  Nutt  saw  its  influence,  also,  in 
the  characters  of  Mordrain  and  Nascien  in  the  Kstoire  and  Queste. 
Cp.  his  pamphlet,  The  Legends  of  the  Holy  Grail,  pp.  48  f.:  Po- 
pular Studies  in  Mythology,  Romance  and  Folklore,  No.  14  (Lon- 
don, 1902).  Galahad,  however,  embodies  the  Templar  ideal  much 
more  perfectly  than  these  two. 

166  In  the  Queste,  VI,  57,  Galahad  at  the  Round  Table  is  com- 
pared to  Christ  at  the  table  of  the  Last  Supper.  Resemblances  of 
Galahad  to  Christ,  have  been  noted,  besides,  by  Heinzel,  Gralromane 


422  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

In  one  important  respect,  the  Queste  is  very  superior  to  the 
branches  of  the  Vulgate  cycle  which  we  have  so  far  considered  — 


p.  142,  and  Wechssler,  Sage  vom  Heiligen  Gral,  p.  117.  See,  too, 
Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXIX '  97  and  Lot's  Lancelot , 
p.  432.  The  present  writer,  moreover,  has  shown  in  his  article  "Ga- 
lahad, Nascien  and  Some  Other  Names  in  the  Grail  Romances",  MLN, 
XXXIII,  129ff.  (1918),  that  Nascien,  the  name  of  the  head  of  Ga- 
lahad's paternal  line,  and  Eliezer,  the  name  of  his  uncle,  are  both 
drawn  from  the  genealogy  of  Christ,  St.  Matthew,  I,  and  St.  Luke, 
III,  where  they  appear  respectively  as  Naasson  and  Eliazer.  —  The 
identity  of  Galahad  and  Christ  was  so  obvious  that  the  story  of  the 
conception  of  the  former  in  the  Lancelot,  V,  105  ff.,  is,  substantially, 
a  sort  of  parody  of  the  story  of  the  conception  of  the  latter.  Cp. 
Bruce,  RR,  IX,  368ff.  (1918).  Each  is  begotten  of  a  virgin  for  the 
express  purpose  of  becoming  a  savior  of  the  people.  In  Robert  de 
Boron's  Merlin,  II,  4ff.,  the  story  of  Christ's  conception  had  already 
been  parodied  in  the  account  of  how  the  Devil  begot  Merlin  upon  a 
virgin,  with  the  idea  of  raising  up  an  Antichrist.  God,  however,  frus- 
trated his  purpose.  It  is  possible  that  this  passage  in  Robert  sug- 
gested the  parody  of  Galahad's  conception. 

Malory  and  Tennyson  have  standardized  Galahad  as  the  name 
of  the  Grail  Winner,  but  in  the  MSS.  of  the  Old  French  romances 
the  usual  form  is  Galaad,  which  in  the  Latin  Bible  (Vulgate)  is  the 
equivalent  of  the  Gilead  of  our  Authorized  Version.  Galaad  (Gi- 
lead)  occurs  most  frequently  as  the  name  of  a  district  in  the  Bible, 
but  it,  also,  occurs  as  the  name  of  three  different  persons:  (1)  a  great- 
grandson  of  Joseph's.  Cp.  Numbers,  XXVI,  29,  XXVII,  1,  et  passim. 
(2)  Jephthah's  father,  Judges,  XI,  1,  2.  (3)  chief  of  a  family  of 
Gad,  I,  Chronicles,  V.  14.  None  of  the  three,  however,  are  really 
prominent  aDd  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  assonance  with 
Gales  really  determined  our  author  in  choosing  this  name.  Perceval 
had  been  of  Gales  (WaJes)  —  hence  the  author  of  the  Queste,  who 
needed  a  biblical  name  for  his  religious  hero  and,  at  the  same  time, 
wanted  to  keep  up  the  connection  with  Gales,  selected  Galahad.  This 
view  is  confirmed  by  the  statement  in  the  Estoire,  I,  282,  that  Gales 
was  named  after  Galahad.  The  reverse,  of  course,  was  the  truth. 
Possibly  the  name  of  the  famous  friend  of  Galahad's  father,  viz: 
Galehaut,  may  have  had  some  influence,  too,  for  that  seemed  also 
connected  etymologically  witli  Gales.  —  On  the  matters  here  discussed 
see  my  article  in  MLN,  just  cited.  Heinzel,  Gralromane,  pp.  134f., 
imagined  that  the  name  was  taken  from  the  first  of  the  three  Bible 
Galahads,  because,  he,  too,  had  an  ancestor  named  Joseph.    Lot,  Lan- 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  423 

namely,  in  unity  of  plan.  The  plan  here  again  takes  the  form  of 
a  quest,  —  the  form  which  had  already  been  employed  so  often 
in  the  Lancelot,  —  but,  in  the  present  instance,  the  effect  of  the 
device  is  not  weakened  by  repetition:  the  whole  book  is  made  up 
of  a  single  quest,  in  which  the  participants  and  adventures  are 
relatively  few.  Moreover,  the  object  of  this  quest  is  not  to  recover 
an  absent  companion  of  the  Round  Table,  but  to  obtain  possession 
of  the  mysterious  symbol  of  our  highest  spiritual  aspirations:  in 
other  words,  the  quest,  in  this  case,  is  a  quest  for  the  ideal. 
Throughout,  everything  is  centred  on  the  attainment  of  the  ideal 
object.  The  knights  leave  Arthur's  court  in  search  of  it  and  those 
who  had  been  predestined  by  divine  grace  to  achieve  it  meet  at 
the  end  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  deepest  spiritual  satisfaction  that 
the  heart  of  man  can  know.  Thus,  by  giving  a  new  direction  to 
a  threadbare  device,  the  writer,  despite  many  shortcomings,  has 
turned  it  into  an  instrument  for  expressing  the  mystical  spirit 
of  the  Middle  Ages  with  a  power  that  is  hardly  equalled  else- 
where. Certainly  no  other  expression  of  that  spirit  has  captured 
the  imagination  of  subsequent  ages  so  widely  or  so  enduringly. 
Notwithstanding  this  unique  achievement,  our  author  has,  by 
no  means,  rid  the  quest  form  of  its  inherent  weakness.  The  ad- 
ventures of  the  individual  knights  are  still  as  disconnected  as  ever. 
Furthermore,  in  a  considerable  proportion  of  cases,  these  adven- 
tures are  the  old  familiar  commonplaces  of  Arthurian  romance,156 

celot,  p.  120  (including  notes)  thinks  that  Galahad  was  selected  be- 
cause of  some  mystic  meaning  and  cites  Genesis,  XXXI,  47,  where 
as  a  place-name,  it  is  interpreted  as  "acervus  testimonii".  The  authors 
of  the  Grail  romances,  however,  did  not  seek  very  far  in  such  matters. 
For  example,  the  name  of  the  heavenly  city,  Sarras,  is  obtained  by 
cutting  off  -in  from  Sarrasin,  the  name  of  the  people  (Saracens) 
among  whom  it  was  situated.  Cp.  Estoire  I,  21.  —  On  Rhys's  im- 
possible derivation  of  the  name,  Galahad,  from  the  Celtic,  Arthurian 
Legend,  pp.  166ff.,  cp.  MLN.  XXXIH,  132,  note  5,  —  On  Christ 
as  a  knight  in  mediaeval  conceptions  cp.  Lot,  op.  cit.,  p.  449. 

166  e.  g.  VI,  100  (Lancelot  joins  the  black  knights  in  a  tourney, 
because  he  sees  that  their  side  is  the  weaker),  124  (Bohort  champions 
a  disinherited  damsel),  140  (Galahad  joins  the  weaker  side  in  a  tour- 
ney), etc. 


424  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  in  still  other  cases  they  are  as  vapid  as  any  in  the  Lancelot. 
The  writer,  it  is  true,  endeavors  to  invest  them  with  a  religious 
significance  by  attaching  to  the  narrative  of  each  adventure  an 
allegorical  interpretation,  just  as  was  done  in  the  contemporary 
exegesis  of  the  Scriptures.  The  method,  however,  is  unconvincing, 
and  there  is  no  trouble  about  discerning  through  the  attempted 
disguise  the  essential  triviality  of  the  incidents  in  question.  The 
only  advantage  of  the  method,  in  such  cases,  is  that  its  regular 
and  rigorous  application  helps  to  impart  a  certain  unity  to  the 
succession  of  isolated  episodes. 

In  characterization  the  Queste  falls  much  below  the  Lancelot. 
In  fact,  only  in  the  case  of  Galahad  and  Gawain  is  there  anything 
that  even  distantly  approaches  individualization  in  the  romance. 
For  the  purpose  of  exalting  the  ascetic  ideal,  as  contrasted  with 
the  prevailing  ideal  of  worldly  chivalry,  the  author  emphasizes 
the  sinfulness  of  Gawain,  the  chief  type  of  the  latter.  According 
to  the  first  hermit  who  receives  the  confession  of  this  character, 
he  is  so  hardened  in  sin  that  the  good  man  gives  up  the  effort  to 
convert  him  because  of  its  uselessness.157  According  to  Nascien, 
he  is  lacking  in  charity,  truth,  and  abstinence.158  Moreover,  he 
is  represented  as  the  slayer  of  the  noble  Baudemagu,  and  others.159 
Nevertheless,  it  is  mainly  in  the  reproofs  of  the  confessional  that 
Gawain's  portrait  is  painted  in  these  dark  colors,  and,  in  general, 
his  character  is  much  the  same  as  elsewhere,  only  the  outlines 
are  fainter. 

Galahad,  of  course,  represents  the  antipodes  of  the  Gawain 
of  this  romance  as  depicted  by  the  confessors  of  that  "flower  of 
courtesy".  After  all,  however,  he,  too,  is  not  a  living  figure,  but, 

157  VI,  40.  168  VI,   115. 

159  Cp.  VI,  37,  109,  184.  The  actual  slaying-  of  Baudemagu 
is  not  related  in  our  MSS.  of  the  Queste,  though  it  is  referred  to  at. 
p.  184.  It  must  have  stood,  however,  in  the  original  version.  Very 
likely  identical  with  the  original  version  is  the  account  of  the  affair 
in  MS.  112,  Part  III,  fol.  97,  col.  1,  which  the  present  writer  pointed 
out  some  years  ago,  Mort  Artu.  p.  266.  References  are  made  to  it, 
too,  in  the  unpublished  part  of  the  Portuguese  Demand a f  Huth  I, 
273 f.  (cp.   Bruce,  loc.  cit.,  including  notes  and  Mort  Artu,   VI,  204.) 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  425 

in  the  main,  a  mere  puppet  of  the  ascetic  imagination.  There  is 
a  certain  impressiveness  about  his  first  appearance  at  Arthur's 
court  —  his  occupation,  as  by  right,  of  the  Perilous  Seat  and  his 
drawing  from  the  stone  the  sword  which  even  the  greatest  cham- 
pions had  failed  to  draw  and  which,  indeed,  was  reserved  ex- 
clusively for  his  use  in  the  prosecution  of  the  Grail  quest.  For  a 
long  time  after  that,  however,  the  adventures  which  he  achieves 
do  not  differ  from  the  ordinary  adventures  of  Arthurian  romance, 
except  in  the  fact  that  they  are  explained  in  an  allegorical  sense, 
and  he,  himself,  does  not  develop  any  individual  traits.  Only 
in  the  final  scenes  of  the  romance  is  the  character  again  lifted  out 
of  the  common  run  of  Arthurian  knights  —  first,  at  the  Grail 
castle,  by  the  ecstacy  of  his  aspirations  for  union  with  the  divine 
spirit,  and,  later,  through  the  sanctity  of  his  death  and  the  marvels 
that  attend  it. 

There  are  other  religious  elements  in  the  Queste,  however, 
besides  those  which  have  just  been  indicated  —  such,  for  example, 
as  Solomon's  ship  with  the  five  staves,  the  Maimed  King  (Mord- 
rain),  whom  only  Galahad  can  heal,160  Perceval's  sister  —  "a 
thing  enskied  and  sainted"  —  the  allegorical  stag  and  lions. 
Everywhere,  moreover,  as  we  have  already  seen,  even  the  most 
commonplace  incidents  are  interpreted  in  terms  of  religious  alle- 
gory, so  that  the  work  has  been  well  described  as  a  "forest  of 
allegories".161  The  air  of  the  enchanted  forests  of  Arthurian  ro- 
mance thus  becomes  heavy  with  symbolism.  A  religious  fanatic 
has  entered  them  and  put  them  under  the  spell  which  was  already 
binding  and  cramping  the  minds  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  every 
other  line  of  effort.162 


160  These  first  two  belong,  of  course,  to  the  Estoire,  also. 

161  Cp.  A.  Pauphilet,  Romania,  XXXVJ,   605. 

If  we  take  the  Grail  romances  as  they  stand — leaving  aside 
the  problems  of  their  evolution  —  the  most  penetrating  appreciation 
of  the  two  Grail  heroes,  Perceval  and  Galahad,  that  we  have  is  Mme. 
Lot-Borodine's,  "Les  deux  conquerants  du  Graal,  Perceval  et  Galaad", 
Romania,  XLVII,  41  ff.  (1921).  I  regret  that  the  same  writer's 
Trois  essais  sur  la  Queste  du  Saint  Graal  (Paris,  1921)  did  not 
reach  me  until  this  book  had  gone  to  press. 


426  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

5.  La  Mort  Artu.168 

The  most  widely  known  of  all  the  traditions  concerning  Arthur 
was  the  one  that  related  to  his  last  battle,  the  mortal  wound  which 
he  received  in  that  conflict,  and  his  subsequent  translation  to  Ava- 
lon,  the  Celtic  Elysium.  This  tradition,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
been  made  famous  especially  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  Historia 
and  its  derivatives,  not  to  mention  the  same  writer's  Vita  Merlini, 
the  circulation  of  which,  however,  seems  to  have  been  limited. 
The  very  fact  that  this  phase  of  the  Arthurian  story  had  already 
received  such  frequent  treatment  was,  no  doubt,  in  part,  respons- 
ible for  the  comparatively  late  appearance  of  a  prose  romance 
on  the  subject.  Besides,  the  Grail  theme,  which,  owing  to  its 
religious  character,  exercised  an  irresistible  attraction  for  the 
Middle  Ages,  was  now  absorbing  the  main  energies  of  the  Ar- 
thurian romancers,  whether  their  chosen  vehicle  of  expression  was 
verse  or  prose.  In  any  event,  there  is  no  ground  for  doubting  that 
the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  was  the  first  prose-romance  on  the  Death- 
of-Arthur  theme164  and  that  it  was  composed  later  than  the  Queste, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  Lancelot,  its  dependence  upon  which  is 
manifest  on  nearly  every  page.165  As  regards  the  second  of  these 


163 


The  text  has  been  printed  by  J.  D.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu  (Halle  a.  S., 
1910),  and  by  Sommer,  VI,  203—391  (1913)  in  his  Vulgate  Version. 

164  Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Perceval,  II,  336  and  Lot, 
Lancelot,  193,  both  of  whom  regard  the  Didot- Perceval  as  a  prose - 
rendering  of  a  lost  poem  by  Robert  de  Boron,  take  the  Mort  Arthur 
section  of  that  romance  as  the  model  for  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu. 
Neither,  however,  is  able  to  point  to  any  specific  borrowings  of  the 
latter  from  the  former,  so  that  their  assumption  of  a  general  influence, 
one  may  fairly  say,  is  entirely  unsupported  by  any  evidence.  As  has 
been  observed,  pp.  30  f.,  above,  the  previous  Death-of- Arthur  narrative, 
which  constituted  the  source  of  the  Vulgate  branch,  was  Layamon's 
lost  French  original. 

166  The  passages  in  the  Mort  Artu  which  show  the  influence 
of  the  Lancelot,  are  so  numerous  that  it  would  be  supererogatory  to 
give  a  list  of  them.  The  main  ones,  with  the  corresponding  passages 
in  the  Lancelot,  are  already  recorded  in  notes  to  my  edition  of  the 
Mort  Artu  —  e.  g.  those  that  relate  to  the  quests  for  Lancelot, 
his  incognito  participation  in  tournaments,  the   unrequited  love  which 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  427 

points,  it  should  be  observed  that  in  the  Mort  Artu,  apart  from 
its  opening  paragraphs,  which  connect  it  explicitly  with  the 
Queste,166  there  are  several  other  allusions  to  that  branch.167  More- 
over, in  the  beautiful  passage  (VI,  256f.),  which  describes  how 
a  boat  bearing  the  dead  body  of  the  Maid  of  Ascalot  (Escalot)168 
drifted  down  the  river  to  Camelot  and  how  a  letter  in  the  hand 
of  the  dead  girl  laid  the  blame  of  her  death  upon  Lancelot,  who 
had  not  requited  her  love,  we  have  an  indisputable  imitation  of 
the  episode  in  the  Queste  (VI,  175)  of  Perceval's  sister,  whose 
dead  body,  as  discovered  by  Lancelot  in  Solomon's  ship,  bore, 
likewise,  in  its  hand,  a  scroll  relating  the  manner  of  her  life  and 
death.  So,  too,  with  Lancelot's  retirement  into  a  hermitage  at 
the  end  of  the  present  romance  (VI,  386ff.)   which  is  modeled 


maidens  cherish  for  him,  his  rescue  of  the  queen  from  burning,  his 
stronghold  of  Joyous  Gard,  etc.  As  I  have  stated  above,  p.  418,  note  143, 
the  connection  between  the  Mort  Artu  and  the  last  division  of  the  Lan- 
celot, viz.  the  so-called  Agravain,  is  particularly  close  —  indeed, 
some  episodes  in  the  latter,  in  all  likelihood,  are  by  the  author  of  the 
Mort  Artu.  Such  episodes  were  doubtless  inserted  in  that  division, 
to  prepare  for  corresponding  episodes  in  the  Mort  Artu. 

168  Miss  Weston,  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot,  pp.  137  (note),  145, 
184,  Folk-Lore,  XX,  497f.  and  Sommer,  VI,  204,  note  10,  maintain 
that  these  opening  pages  of  the  Mort  Artu  originally  formed  a  part 
of  the  Queste.  For  a  refutation  of  this  assumption  see  Bruce,  RR, 
HI,  173ff.,  IV,  458  ff. 

167  Galahad  is  named,  Sommer,  VI,  219,  390,  Bruce,  pp.  24, 
262.  We  have,  besides,  mention  of  the  Perilous  Seat  of  the  Quester 
Sommer,  VI,  293  (souurain  lieu)  =  Bruce,  p.  125  (Sieges  Perilleus) 
and  of  the  Sword  of  the  Strange  Hangings  Sommer,  VI,  379  =  Bruce, 
p.  247.  The  former  appears  already  in  Robert's  Merlin,  II,  56  f.,  but 
it  is  called  there  the  "Empty  Seat",  not  the  "Perilous  Seat."  The 
above-mentioned  sword  is  also  found  in  Chretien  and  his  continuators, 
as  we  have  seen.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  other  passages  show  that 
our  author  knew  the  Queste,  doubtless  this  allusion,  too,  is  drawn  from 
that  romance. 

As  suggested  by  J.  Rhys,  Studies  in  the  Arthurian  Legend, 
p.  393,  Ascalot  is,  no  doubt,  derived  from  Alclut,  the  old  Welsh  name 
of  the  Rock  of  Dumbarton  in  the  Clyde.  On  this  name  and  its  variants 
see,  still  further,  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  269 f. 


428  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

on  Perceval's  similar  retirement  after  Galahad's  death  at  the  end 
of  the  Queste  (VI,  198).169 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Queste,  there  is  not  a  single  refe- 
rence of  any  kind170  to  the  Mort  Artu.  The  former  romance,  in- 
deed, gives  us  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  downfall  of  the  Round 
Table  had  been  connected  with  the  love-affair  of  Lancelot  and 
Guinevere  at  the  time  that  it  was  written.  The  confession  of 
Lancelot  to  the  hermit  afforded  the  best  opportunity  possible  for 
some  allusion  to  the  tragical  consequences  which  the  sin  of  the 
lovers  was  to  entail  —  an  opportunity  which  the  author  of  the 
Queste  with  his  craze  for  sermonizing  would  surely  have  availed 
himself  of  —  but  there  is  no  such  allusion.  The  reason  is  plain: 
That  conception  was  the  invention  of  the  author  of  the  Mori  Artu 
and  the  Mort  Artu  was  not  yet  written. 

In  view  of  these  circumstances,  there  is  obviously  no  reason 
for  adopting  the  view,  which  has  been  expressed  by  some  scho- 
lars,171 that  the  Mart   Artu  is  of  earlier  date  than  the  Queste. 

The  author  of  the  Mort  Artu,  at  the  beginning  of  his  ro- 
mance,172 links  it  with  the  Queste,  but  his  interests  were  secular,  — 

16tf  The  two  agree  even  in  detail:  Lancelot  has  a  companion 
(Hector)  in  his  hermitage,  just  as  Perceval  had  one  (Bohort).  When 
Perceval  dies,  he  is  buried  in  Galahad's  tomb;  so  is  Lancelot  in 
Gralehot's. 

170  In  my  article,  "The  Development  of  the  Mort  Arthur  Theme 
in  Mediaeval  Romance,*'  RR,  IV,  403ff  (1913),  I  have  discussed, 
pp.  458 ff.,  the  relative  dates  of  the  Queste  and  Mort  Artu.  The 
next  three  sentences  are  taken  from  that  discussion,  pp.  461  f. 

171  This  is  implied  in  Miss  Weston's  Legend  of  Sir  Lancelot, 
p.  145  (1901)  and  Folk-Lore,  XX,  497f.  Op.,  too,  Brugger,  Zs.  j. 
frz.  Spr.  u.  Lilt.,  XXIX1,  95  (1905),  XXXVI2,  207  (1910).  In 
the  article  mentioned  in  the  previous  note  I  have  endeavored  to  show 
that  the  views  of  these  two  scholars  as  to  the  Mort  Artu's  being 
a  compilation  or  the  result  of  successive  accretions  to  an  original 
nucleus  are  without  foundation.  If  we  except  Geoffrey  and  his  deri- 
vatives (including  the  Mort  Arthur  section  of  the  Didot-Perceval) 
every  version  of  the  Death-of-Arthur  theme  in  existence  is  derived 
from  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu.  This  is  clear  from  the  above-mentioned 
investigation. 

172  Brace's  edition,   pp.  1  —  3,  Sommer's  edition,   VI,  203  —  205. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  429 

not  religious,  —  and  in  spiritual  kinship  he  stood  far  closer  to 
the  authors  of  the  Lancelot  than  to  the  fanatic  who  penned  the 
Queste.  Nevertheless,  apart  from  the  direct  allusions  to  this  latter 
romance  which  his  work  contains,173  he  was  otherwise  profoundly 
indebted  to  it;  for  the  Queste  had  stressed  the  sinfulness  of  Lance- 
lot's adulterous  relations  with  the  queen,174  and  it  was,  no  doubt 
this  circumstance  that  suggested  to  our  author  the  happy  inven- 
tion of  making  the  passion  of  the  guilty  pair,  which  had  been 
glorified  in  the  Lancelot,  the  cause  of  the  downfall  of  Arthur 
and  the  Round  Table. 

As  a  work  of  art,  the  Mort  Artu  is  superior,  at  every  point, 
to  the  preceding  branches  of  the  cycle;  in  this  respect,  it  out- 
weighs all  the  rest  put  together.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  the 
only  one  of  the  branches  that  is  marked  by  a  genuine  constructive 
skill.  The  narrative  of  the  love  affair  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere 
and  its  fatal  consequences  is  developed  continuously  throughout 
the  romance  with  virtually  no  interruption  from  digressions;175 
for  even  the  episodes  of  the  Maid  of  Ascalot176  and  of  the  poisoned 
fruit177  which  might  appear  at  first  sight  to  retard  the  action,  in 
reality,  reinforce  it,  since  Guinevere's  jealousy,  in  the  one  in- 
stance, and  Lancelot's  rescue  of  her,  in  the  other,  strengthen  the 
lovers'  passion,  so  as  to  render  the  tragical  issue  all  the  more  ine- 
vitable. With  similar  skill  the  motif  of  Lancelot's  encounters, 
incognito,  with  Gawain  and  his  (Lancelot's)  kinsmen  in  the  lists, 


173  See  above,  p.  427,  including  note. 

1,4  Op.  VI,  45  ff.  (Lancelot's  confession  to  the  hermit). 

176  There  are,  perhaps,  two  exceptions;  1.  VI,  358 f.  the  lord  of 
Beloe  kills  his  wife  out  of  jealousy  of  the  dead  Gawain.  2.  VI,  347 ff. 
the  Roman  wars.  The  first  seems  an  inopportune  invention  of  our 
author;  the  second  was  traditional. 

176  VI,  208ff. 

VI,  248 ff.  A  Scotch  knight  wishes  to  kill  Gawain  and  at 
the  table  hands  Guinevere  some  poisoned  fruit  with  the  idea  that  she 
will  pass  it  on  to  Gawain,  not  knowing  that  it  is  poisoned.  She, 
happens  to  give  it,  however,  to  the  brother  of  Mador  de  la  Porte, 
who  dies  from  eating  it.  Mador  accuses  her  of  having  poisoned  his 
brother  on  purpose  and  she  would  have  been  burned  as  a  punishment 
but  for  Lancelot's  rescuing  her. 


430  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

though  repeated  so  often  already  in  the  Lancelot,  is  made  effec- 
tive here  through  the  superior  concentration  of  the  narrative  and 
from  the  fact  that  the  combats  in  question  are  so  intimately  con- 
nected with  the  story  of  the  unhappy  Maid  of  Ascalot,  and  hence 
with  the  development  of  the  vital  theme  of  the  queen's  jealousy. 
From  the  point  where  this  jealousy  is  quenched  by  Lancelot's 
rescue  of  the  victim  from  the  stake  and  the  lovers  are  surprised 
in  the  queen's  chamber,  the  action  unfolds  itself,  without  a  break, 
through  the  successive  stages  of  the  flight  of  the  detected  pair 
to  Joyous  Gard,  Arthur's  siege  of  that  stronghold,  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Pope  and  the  consequent  reconciliation  of  the  king 
and  his  consort,  Lancelot's  return  to  his  native  land,  Arthur's 
reluctant  renewal  of  the  war  against  Lancelot  in  the  latter's  do- 
minions, Mordred's  treason  and  the  king's  return  to  Logres,  Guine- 
vere's retirement  to  a  nunnery,  the  final  battle  on  Salisbury 
Plains,178    involving    Mordred's    death,    the    annihilation    of    the 


1,8  In  Geoffrey's  Historia,  XI,  1  —  2,  and  its  derivatives  we  have 
three  battles  between  Arthur  and  Mordred.  Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu- 
pp.  291  ff.  It  was  one  of  the  numerous  marks  of  our  author's  con- 
structive skill  that  he  reduces  these  three  to  one.  Moreover,  he  places 
the  last  battle  on  Salisbury  Plains,  whereas  according  to  the  Geof- 
freyan  tradition,  it  was  fought  in  Cornwall.  Only  in  the  Didot 
Perceval  (Miss  Weston's  edition,  p.  Ill)  was  it  fought  in  Ireland, 
the  author  of  that  romance  desiring  to  bring  it  nearer  to  the  supposed 
site  of  Avalon,  whither  the  wounded  king  was  to  be  taken.  Cp.  Lot, 
Lancelot,  p.  195,  note  1.  Lot,  ibid.  pp.  194  ff.  (including  notes)  suggests 
that  the  author  of  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  put  the  last  battle  on 
Salisbury  Plains,  under  the  influence  of  Goeffrey,  VI,  15,  or  Wace, 
11.  7409  ff.  —  more  likely  the  latter  —  because  Geoffrey  implies 
and  Wace  expressly  declares  that  the  treacherous  massacre  of  the 
British  princes  by  Hengist,  the  Saxon  chieftan,  took  place  on  these 
plains.  It  is  hardly  open  to  doubt,  however,  that  our  author  really 
derived  this  idea  from  Robert  de  Boron's  Merlin,  Sommer,  II,  49  ff., 
where  Arthur's  father,  Uther,  is  already  represented  as  defeating  the 
Saxons  on  Salisbury  Plains  in  a  battle  of  which  the  prophet,  Merlin, 
had  said  (II,  50):  "puis  que  sainte  crestiente  fu  establie  en  ceste  ille 
not  mais  si  grant  bataille  ne  naura  en  nos  tans  com  ceste  sera."  It 
was  evidently  with  this  prediction  of  Merlin's  concerning  the  earlier 
battle  in  mind  that  he,  also,  inserted  in  his  work  a  prophetic  inscription 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  431 

knights  of  the  Round  Table,  and  the  fatal  wounding  of  Arthur, 
which  is  followed  by  his  translation  to  Avalon  and  his  mysterious 
burial  at  the  Vaire  Capiele.179  Among  the  heroines  of  the  imagi- 
nation, only  Guinevere  and  Helen  of  Troy,  by  the  enchantment 
of  their  beauty,  have  provoked  such  storms  of  passion  or  called 
down  upon  the  nations  such  overwhelming  catastrophes.  For 
modern  tastes,  the  description  of  the  last  battle  is,  perhaps,  too 
much  prolonged.  Nevertheless,  the  total  impression  of  these  final 
chapters  of  Arthur's  eventful  history  is,  unmistakably,  one  of  tra- 
gic sublimity.180  The  significance  of  the  stupendous  disaster  seems 
to  pass  beyond  the  limits  of  an  individual  tragedy,  and  the  ruin 
of  the  legendary  monarch  and  his  hosts  becomes  full  of  profound 
suggestion  as  to  the  general  lot  of  man  and  the  transitoriness  of 
all  earthly  glory.  In  the  sequel,  too,  of  the  translation  to  Avalon 
we  have  a  corresponding  expression  in  adequate  imaginative  form 
of  the  infinite  longings  of  the  human  heart  for  some  far-off  super- 
natural abode  where  we  shall  be  permitted  to  enjoy  eternally  the 
felicity  that  is  denied  us  in  this  world. 

So  much  for  the  superiority  of  the  Mart  Artu  in  respect  to 
construction.  Perhaps,  even  more  important,  however,  is  the  fact 
that  its  author  does  not  aim  at  engaging  or  holding  the  reader's 
attention  by  cheap  supernaturalism  or  by  the  puerile  extravagance 
of  his  hero's  exploits  or  by  appeals  to  the  prevalent  taste  for  the 


by  the  same  sage  in  regard  to  Arthur's  final  battle  (VI,  362  f.)  and 
at  a  corresponding  point  —  namely,  just  before  the  description  of  the 
battle,  itself.  In  both  cases,  moreover,  the  enemies  of  the  British 
king  perish  to  the   last  man.     Cp.  respectively,  II,  51  and  VI,  377. 

1,9  The  present  writer  has  already  pointed  out,  Revue  Celtique, 
XXXIII,  432  (1912),  and  RR,  IV,  454,  (1913),  that  the  author  here 
awkwardly  combines  the  old  popular  tradition  concerning  the  wounded 
Arthur's  being  borne  to  Avalon  with  the  new  idea,  first  started  by 
the  monks  of  Glastonbury  in  1191,  that  he  was  buried  in  Glaston- 
bury abbey. 

180  Brugger,  Zs.  /.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL,  XXIX,  x  95  (1905),  speaks 
of  the  "erhabene  Tragik"  of  the  Mort  Artu,  as  well  as  of  its  other 
beauties.  E.  Freymond,  Deutsche  Literaturzeitung  for  May  3,  1913, 
has  rightly  declared  it  to  be  one  of  the  most  important  prose -works 
of  Old  French  literature. 


432  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Bomance 

artificial  fashions  of  courtly  love.  The  potency  of  his  narrative 
rests  rather  on  permanent  elements  of  human  interest  —  on  the 
variety  and,  in  the  climax,  the  grandeur  of  its  action,  on  its  de- 
lineation of  powerful  passions  of  different  kinds,  on  its  dramatic 
interplay  of  character  with  character.  We  have,  consequently,  a 
subtler  psychology  displayed  in  the  invention  of  situations  and 
in  the  portrayal  of  the  actors  in  the  story  than  is  observable  in 
the  other  branches  of  the  cycle,  save,  possibly,  in  a  few  of  the 
earliest181  and  latest  episodes182  of  the  Lancelot.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  scene183  just  before  Gawain  learns  of  the  death 
of  his  brothers,  Agravain,  Guerrehes,  and  Gaheries,  in  com- 
bat, with  Lancelot  and  his  companions.  The  first  two  and 
Mordred  had  surrounded  Lancelot  and  Guinevere  at  an  assig- 
nation. Lancelot  escapes,  but  Guinevere  is  about  to  be  burnt  for 
adultery,  when  Lancelot  comes  to  her  rescue.  Gawain' s  brothers, 
except  Mordred,  are  all  killed  in  the  affray,  but  Gawain,  himself y 
is  absent,  for  he  had  refused  to  be  present  at  the  burning  of  the 
queen.  He  comes  forth  at  last,  and,  as  he  goes  to  the  king's  pa- 
lace, he  sees  all  the  people  silent  and  plunged  in  grief,  as  he  be- 
lieves, for  the  queen,  but  it  is  really  on  account  of  his  brothers, 
and  so,  ignorant  of  the  cause  of  their  sorrow,  he  passes  down  the 
street  with  the  sad  and  sympathetic  gaze  of  the  throng  fixed  upon 
him.  There  is  a  Homeric  strength  and  simplicity  about  the  un- 
known French  writer's  treatment  of  this  fine  situation. 

The  same  qualities  which  excite  our  admiration  in  the  hand- 
ling of  a  situation  such  as  that  which  has  been  just  described,  re- 
veal themselves  naturally,  also,  in  the  author's  delineation  of  cha- 
racter. We  do  not  expect  to  find  a  thirteenth  century  romancer 
penetrating  to  the  obscurest  recesses  of  the  human  soul,  like  the 
best  masters  of  fiction  in  the  present  age  of  science.    Indeed,  the 


181  More  particularly,  the  Claudas  episodes. 

182  The  episodes  in  which  the  motifs  are  Guinevere's  jealousy 
and  her  chequered  friendship  with  Lancelot's  kinsmen.  I  have  already 
given  reasons  (p.  418,  note  143,  above)  for  my  belief  that  these  episodes 
are  by  the  author  of  the  Mort  Artu. 

183  Bruce,  pp.  116ff.,  Sommer,  VI,  286  ff. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  433 

men  and  women  that  moved  about  him  in  the  actual  life  of  the 
time  were  framed  on  simpler  lines  than  has  been  the  case  under 
the  more  complex  conditions  of  recent  centuries.  Measured,  how- 
ever, by  the  standards  of  characterization  in  the  mediaeval  ro- 
mances,  the  Mort  Artu  shows,  in  this  respect,  also,  a  remarkable 
advance  on  its  predecessors.  Through  a  combination  of  traits  and 
incidents,  such  as  her  jealous  agitation  with  regard  to  Lancelot,184 
her  troubled  relations  with  Bohort  on  that  account,185  her  self- 
reproaches  at  having  driven  her  lover  from  court,186  the  compassion 
which  she  inspires  in  the  poisoned  fruit  affair,  when  she  is  about 
to  be  executed  on  an  unjust  charge,187  the  character  of  Guinevere 
here  takes  on  a  distinct  individuality.  Similarly,  Gawain,  who, 
in  previous  Arthurian  tradition,  had  figured  merely  as  a  general 
embodiment  of  chivalrous  valor  and  courtesy,  is  brought  down 
to  earth  by  the  indignant  pity  on  Guinevere's  account  which  causes 
him  to  absent  himself  from  her  intended  execution,188  by  his  pro- 
phetic anticipation  of  the  evils  that  will  flow  from  his  brother 
Agravain's  disclosures  to  Arthur  of  Lancelot's  intrigue  with  the 
queen,  and  his  vain  protests  against  these  disclosures,189  and  by 
his  implacable  wrath  against  the  friend  whom  he  had  loved  best 
(Lancelot),190  when,  through  no  fault  of  his  own,  this  friend  and 
his  kinsmen  become  the  slayers  of  the  headstrong  Agravain  and 
the  other  brothers  who  had  rejected  his  (Gawain's)  advice.  Still 
other  instances  of  effective  characterization  in  the  romance  might 
be  cited;   it  will  suffice,  however,  to  name  that  of  the  Maid  of 

184  Bruce,  pp.  26  ff.,  Sommer,  VI,  221  ff.  This  and  the  two 
following  motifs  are  already  found  in  the  Agravain  (last  division  of 
the  Lancelot),  in  passages,  however,  which,  I  believe,  are  by  the  author 
of  the  Mort  Artu. 

186  Bruce,  pp.  29ff.,  57ff.,  86 ff.,  Soimner,  VI,  223ff.,  244ff., 
264  ff. 

188  Bruce,  pp.  77  f.,  Sommer,  VI,  258  f. 

187  Bruce,  pp.  63 ff.,  Sommer,  VI,   248  ff. 

188  Bruce,  p.  107,  Sommer,  VI,  279.  This,  to  be  sure,  is  imitated 
from  Lancelot,  IV,  59,  or  Beroul's  Tristan  (ed.  Muret),  pp.  34  ff. 

189  Bruce,  pp.  92  f.,  Sommer,  VI,  269  f. 

190  Bruce,  pp.  155  ff.,  Sommer,  VI,  316  ff. 


434  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Asealot,  whose  character  is  drawn  with  such  a  tender  pathos  and 
grace  that  her  story191  constitutes  one  of  the  most  memorable  pic- 
tures of  unrewarded  love  in  the  history  of  fiction.  Especially,  the 
final  scene192  in  this  story,  already  referred  to  above,  in  which 
Arthur  and  Gawain  discover  the  dead  body  of  the  girl,  with  the 
accusing  letter  in  its  hand,  in  the  boat  that  drifts  down  to  Camelot, 
is  one  of  the  passages  in  mediaeval  literature  that  touch  the  very 
acme  of  romance. 

We  have  already  commented  on  the  sparing  use  of  the  super- 
natural which  is  made  by  our  author.  Indeed,  it  is  only  in  the 
concluding  phase  of  his  story  that  he  draws  at  all  on  this  source 
of  romantic  interest.  He  had  inherited  from  his  verse-chronicle 
original193  the  age-hallowed  legend  or  myth  as  to  Arthur's  trans- 
lation to  the  Other-world  isle,  after  he  has  been  wounded  in  his 
last  battle.  Our  author  has  not  only  adopted  this  splendid  con- 
ception, but  he  has  enhanced  its  grandeur  and  heightened  the 
imaginative  coloring  of  the  whole  final  catastrophe  by  the  em- 
ployment of  still  other  supernatural  motifs,  which  are  in  harmony 
with  it,  viz:  1.  the  dream  in  which  a  day  or  two  before  the  battle 
Arthur  is  warned  by  the  spirit  of  the  dead  Gawain  to  call  Lancelot 
to  his  aid,191  2.  Arthur's  vision  of  the  Wheel  of  Fortune,195  3. 
Merlin's  prophetic  inscription  in  regard  to  the  king's  death  in 
the  impending  battle,196  4.  the  marvel  which  attended  Gifflet's 
(Girf let's),  return  of  Excalibur  to  the  lake197  —  the  arm  clad  in 


191  Bruce,  pp.  8  ft,   Sonmier,  VI,  208  ff. 

192  Bruce,  pp.  74  ff.,  Soinmer,   VI,  256  f. 

193  On  this  matter  see  pp.  30  f.  above. 

194  Bruce,  pp.  218  f.,   Sommer,  VI,  360. 
196  Bruce,  pp.  220  f.,  Sommer,  VI,   361. 

3  Bruce,  p.  222,  Sommer,  VI,  362  f. 


197  Bruce,  pp.  248  f.,  Sommer,  VI,  380.  On  this  incident  Cp. 
Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  297  f.  According  to  Geoffrey,  Book  IX,  ch.  4, 
P^xcalibur  (Caliburnus)  was  made  in  Avalon.  See,  too,  Wace,  1,  9516. 
The  account  in  the  Huth-Merlin,  I,  195  ff.,  as  to  how  Arthur  got 
Excalibur  from  this  same  lake  is  evidently  a  mere  invention  of  the 
author,  suggested  by  the  present  passage.  No  parallel  to  the  incident 
has  ever  been  adduced    save   one  from  the  Persian  Remembrancer  of 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  435 

samite  rising  from  the  water,  seizing  and  brandishing  the  sword 
and  then  drawing  it  under  —  an  incident  which  immediately 
precedes  the  king's  embarkation  in  the  ship  of  his  sister,  Morgain, 
and  her  fairy  companions.  Thus  we  see  that,  whereas  in  the  earlier 
portion  of  the  branch,  the  story  moves  within  the  bounds  of  the 
actual,  passing  at  most  at  one  or  two  points  into  the  realm  of 
high  romance,  in  the  later  portion  —  that  is  to  say,  from  the 
time  that  Arthur  begins  his  march  to  Salisbury  Plains,198  which 
are  to  be  the  scene  of  his  ruin,  up  to  the  end  —  its  whole  atmo- 
sphere is  filled  with  signs  and  wonders,  as  befitted  the  mythical 
catastrophe. 

The  mention  of  our  author's  handling  of  the  ever-memorable 
tradition  concerning  the  end  of  Arthur  and  all  his  glory  brings 
us  to  a  consideration  of  the  sources  of  his  romance.  In  accordance 
with  his  superior  genius,  we  shall  find  him  combining  and  reshap- 
ing his  materials  with  even  greater  freedom  than  his  predecessors 
had  done.  Having  determined  to  connect  the  downfall  of  Arthur 
and  the  Round  Table  with  the  adultery  of  Lancelot  and  the  queen, 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  develop  the  story  of  this  affair  through 
a  variety  of  incidents  which  would  show  how  the  ever-growing 
passion  of  the  lovers  drew  them  and  with  them,  Arthur  and  his 
knights,   irresistibly  towards  the  tragical  issue.    But  a  story  of 

the  Saints  (twelfth  century),  pointed  out  by  R.  A.  Nicholson  in  the 
Athenaeum  for  April  6,  1901,  p.  434.  Here  the  object  thrown  into 
the  water  (the  river  Oxus,  not  a  lake)  consists  of  some  writings  of 
"the  Shaikh".  An  open  chest  which  God  sent  by  a  fish  to  preserve 
them  appears.  The  incident  is  not  connected  with  the  hero's  death, 
and,  it  is  safe  to  say,  stands  in  no  historical  relation  to  the  one  in 
the  Mort  Artu.  The  fact  that  there  is  no  similar  story  in  the  extant 
Celtic  records  and  that,  apparently,  the  incident  was  not  contained  in 
our  author's  verse-chronicle  source  for  this  part  of  his  romance — for  it 
is  not  found  in  Layamon  —  tells  against  the  theory  of  Celtic  origin, 
which  generally  prevails.  I  am  more  inclined  to  believe  that  it  was 
invented  by  our  author  and  I  expect  to  discuss  it  in  a  separate  article 
from  this  point  of  view. 

198  Bruce,  p.  218,  Sommer,  VI,  360.  The  fact  that  only  Arthur 
and  two  of  his  knights  survive  the  conflict  of  the  two  hosts  approaches, 
also,  the  supernatural.     This   accords,  in   essentials,  with  Welsh   tra- 


436  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

overpowering  passion,  although  its  consequences  involved  no  general 
disaster,  lay  ready  to  the  writer's  hand  in  the  Tristan  romances, 
and  his  mind  would  turn  for  a  model  all  the  more  naturally  to 
these  romances,  inasmuch  as  the  story  of  Lancelot  and  Guine- 
vere had  been,  from  the  beginning,  a  mere  adaptation  of  that  of 
Tristan  and  Iseult.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  narrative  of  the 
amours  of  Lancelot  and  the  queen  in  the  Mort  Artu  down  through 
the  former' 8  surrender  of  the  latter  to  her  husband  after  the  siege 
of  Joyous  Gard199  is  based  primarily  on  the  story  of  the  earlier 
lovers.  We  have  the  same  motifs:  1.  of  the  informer  who  is  an 
enemy  of  the  hero  and  who,  despite  previous  failure,  finally  brings 
about  the  detection  of  the  guilty  couple,200   2.  of  the  hero's  rescue 


dition.  Cp.  Kulhwch  and  Olwen,  Loth's  Mabinogion 2,  I,  270,  and 
the  triad,  ibid.  II,  290.  Gifflet  and  Lucan  nearly  always  appear  together 
in  the  romances,  and  they  were  the  last  to  be  with  Arthur,  no  doubt, 
because  they  were  officers  of  his  household.  For  a  full  discussion  of 
all  these  matters  cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  294  ff. 

According  to  W.  J.  Gruffydd,  "The  Mabinogion"',  Transactions  of 
the  Honorable  Society  of  Cymmrodorion,  Session,  1912 — IB,  p.  38, 
the  writer  of  Kulhivch  and  Olwen,  in  declaring  that  only  three  men 
escaped  from  Arthur's  last  battle,  was  imitating  two  earlier  Welsh 
accounts  of  battles,  viz.  Catraeth  and  Arfderydd,  in  regard  to  both 
of  which  a  similar  statement  is  made.  For  Catraeth  see  Skene,  Four 
Ancient  Books  of  Wales,  I,  382.  The  triad  referred  to  above  is 
late,  and,  although  it  does  not  agree  entirely  with  Kulhwch  and 
Oliven,  it  may  very  well  have  been  written  under  the  influence  of  the 
passage  in  that  tale. 

109  Bruce,  p.  148,  Sommer,  VI,  310  f. 

200  Cp.  the  editions  of  the  romance  which  wo  have  been  citing, 
respectively,  pp.  4,  96  ff.,  and  VI,  205  f.,  272 ff.  In  his  Uber  die  ver- 
schiedenen  Redaktionen  des  Robert  von  Borron  zuyeschriebenen 
Graal-bancelot  Cyklus,  p.  36  (Halle,  1895),  E.  Wechssler  assumes 
that  our  romance,  in  its  original  form,  began  with  the  second  of  these 
attempts  of  Agravain  to  incite  the  king  against  Lancelot  and  the  queen, 
but  he  has  won  no  adherents  to  his  hypothesis  and  it  is  supported 
by  no  evidence.     Cp.  on  the  subject,  IV,   461,  note  93. 

For  passages  in  the  Tristan  romances  corresponding  to  those  in 
the  Mort  Artu,  just  cited  cp.  particularly,  Thomas's  Tristan,  ed. 
Bedier,  I,  175 ff.,  where  Mariadocs  role  is  like  Agravain's.  There  are, 
of  course,  differences  of  details  between  the  romances.     The  influence 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  437 

of  the  heroine  from  the  penalty  of  her  adultery,  viz.  burning  at 
the  stake,201  and  the  subsequent  flight  of  the  lovers,  3.  of  the 
hero's  return  of  the  heroine  to  her  husband  on  condition  that  her 
offence  shall  be  pardoned  and  that  he  himself  shall  leave  the 
kingdom,  the  act  of  returning  the  unfaithful  wife  being  accom- 
panied in  each  case  by  the  lover's  denunciations  of  her  accusers 
and  false  asseverations  as  to  her  chastity.202  The  author,  how- 
ever, has  interwoven  these  Tristan  motifs  inextricably  with  others 
that  are  drawn  from  the  prose  Lancelot203  —  in  a  considerable 
measure,  to  be  sure,  from  parts  of  the  Lancelot  which  were  pro- 


of Beroul's  Tristan,  ed.  Muret,  pp.  19  ff.,  seems  evident,  also,  in  the 
circumstances  of  the  disclosure. 

201  Cp.  op.  city  pp.  108  ff.  and  VI,  280  ff.  Cp.  Beroul's  Tristan, 
ed.  Muret,  pp.  34  ff.  On  burning  as  the  penalty  for  adultery  in  women, 
which  is  so  common  in  the  romances,  cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  282  f., 
where  references  to  the  literature  of  the  subject  are  also  given.  In 
regard  to  the  usual  statements  that  there  was  no  such  custom  in  the 
actual  life  of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  is  there  pointed  out  that  in  the 
laws  of  the  Christian  kingdom  of  Jerusalem,  Assises  de  Jerusalem 
(ed.  Beugnot),  I,  176,  provision  was  made  that,  if  a  knight  champions 
the  cause  of  a  woman  in  any  matter  "et  so  son  champion  est  vencu 
elle  sera  arce  et  il  deit  estre  pendu,  que  de  quelque  carelle  que  se 
seit".  This  would  come  near  covering  the  case  of  Guinevere.  It 
should  be  observed,  moreover,  that  convicted  adulteresses  were  actually 
burned  under  the  old  Jewish  law  —  Cp.  Genesis,  XXXVIII,  24  and 
Leviticus,  XXI,  9  —  so  that  the  romancers  may  well  have  derived 
the  idea  from  that  source. 

202  Cp.  op.  tit.,  p.  148  and  VI,  310  f.  with  Beroul's  Tristan 
(ed.  Muret),  pp.  89  f.  Beroul  here  is  undoubtedly  the  source  of  our 
romance.  It  is  worth  observing,  however,  that  already  in  the  Vita 
Gildae  the  monks  of  Glastonbury  induce  Arthur  to  take  his  wife  back, 
after  Melwas's  abduction. 

803  Especially  the  episode  of  the  False  Guinevere,  Sommer,  IV, 
10  ff.,  in  which,  likewise,  Lancelot,  pp.  59  ff.  rescues  the  queen.  We 
have  there,  also,  pp.  72 f.,  an  intervention  of  the  Pope  in  Arthur's 
marital  affairs.  With  much  plausibility  E.  Freymond,  Zs.f.  rom.  Ph., 
XVI,  97,  note,  (1892),  argues  that  this  incident  was  suggested  by  Pope 
Innocent  Ill's  intervention  in  the  matrimonial  dissensions  of  Philip 
Augustus  and  his  wife,  Ingeborg,  during  the  last  years  of  the  twelfth 
century.     Cp.,  too,  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  284 f. 


438  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

bably  of  his  own  composition.204  Moreover,  as  has  been  intimat- 
ed above,  he  has  enriched  the  interest  of  his  romance  and  inten- 
sified the  impression  of  the  strength  of  the  lovers'  passion  by 
the  insertion  of  two  more  episodes,  derived  from  still  other  sources — 
namely,  the  episodes,  respectively,  of  the  Maid  of  Ascalot  and  of 
the  poisoned  fruit.  The  suggestion  of  the  immortal  Maid  came, 
it  is  true,  from  Iseult  of  Brittany205  in  the  Tristan  poems,  but 
the  beautiful  conclusion  of  her  story  —  the  boat  with  the  dead 
body  borne  down  stream  until  it  reaches  Arthur's  palace  —  is 
an  indubitable  imitation  of  the  similar  passage  concerning  Perce- 
val's sister  in  the  Queste.206  On  the  other  hand,  the  incident  of 
the  poisoned  fruit  has  its  source  in  one  of  two  chansons  de  geste, 
Gaydon  or  Parise  la  Duchesse,  in  both  of  which  we  find  heroines 
whose  lives  are  imperilled  by  mistaken  accusations  of  the  same 
kind.207 

Just  as  the  Tristan  poems  constituted  the  main  basis  for  the 
narrative  of  the  Mort  Artu  down  to  the  point  where  Lancelot 


304  On  these  passages  (in  the  so-called  Agravairi)  cp.  p.  402 
note  71,  above. 

208  Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  270f.  By  an  oversight  in  this 
note  on  the  Maid  of  Ascalot  and  in  the  headlines  to  the  text,  pp.  7ff., 

I  have  called  the  Maid  „Elaine  (Elayne)".  We  do  not  find  that  name 
given  her,  however,  before  Malory.  As  is  remarked  in  this  note,  the 
character  seems  to  owe  something,  also,  to  that  of  Pelles'  daughter 
(Galahad's  mother)  in  the  Lancelot.     I  was  misled  by  P.  Paris,   III, 

II  et  passim,  into  supposing  that  the  latter  character  was,  likewise, 
called  "Helene",  which  is,  of  course,  identical  with  "Elaine".  Sommer, 
too,  erroneously  gives  her  this  name  in  the  Index  and  marginal  notes 
to  his  Vulgate  Version.  Nevertheless,  she  did  not  actually  acquire 
it  until  later  and  through  a  scribal  blunder  which  I  have  explained, 
MPh.,  XVI,  340,  note  1. 

Cp.  p.  420,  note  150,  above. 
207  Cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  274  ff.  Miss  L.  A.  Paton,  MLN, 
for  June,  1903,  p.  164,  note  101,  and  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u. 
Litt.,  XXX2,  225,  note  114  (1906)  regard  the  poisoned  fruit  as  the 
Otherworld  apples  of  folklore  in  rationalized  form.  Neither  scholar, 
however,  was  aware  of  these  chanson  de  geste  sources.  Besides,  in 
the  note  just  cited,  I  have  called  attention  to  recent  actual  instances 
of  poisoning  by  means  of  apples. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  439 

returns  to  his  own  dominions,  after  surrendering  Guinevere  to 
her  husband,  so  the  main  framework  of  his  subsequent  narrative 
was  supplied  the  author  by  Wace  —  not  the  Wace  of  our  manu- 
scripts, but  the  expanded  version  of  that  poet's  Brut,  which,  though 
lost  in  its  original  French  form,  has  been  preserved  in  Layamon's 
English  paraphrase.208  With  even  greater  boldness  than  in  the 
first  part  of  his  work,  however,  the  writer  has  here  reshaped  the 
materials  of  his  source,  so  as  to  fit  them  to  his  new  design  of  con- 
necting the  adulterous  relations  of  Lancelot  and  the  queen  with 
the  destruction  of  Arthur  and  the  Round  Table.  Thus,  in  his 
romance  Lancelot  usurps  the  role  of  Mordred  as  Guinevere's 
lover.209  Furthermore,  he  fills  the  place  of  Frollo,210  Arthur's 
enemy,  before  his  death,  and  of  Constantine,  the  same  monarch's 
avenger,  after  his  death.211  This  double  role  suits  the  conception 
of  Lancelot  which  runs  all  through  the  Mort  Artu.  Having  wrong- 
ed Arthur  through  his  guilty  passion  for  Guinevere,  he  becomes, 
against  his  will,  the  king's  enemy.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has 
never  faltered  in  his  personal  loyalty,  and  so,  being  the  greatest 
of  Arthur's  knights,  he  is  the  proper  avenger  of  his  sovereign. 

208  On  this  subject  cp.  pp.  30  ff.,  above. 

309  This  and  the  following  four  sentences  are  taken,  with  some 
slight  changes  of  wording,  from  pp.  452  f.  of  the  present  writer's 
article,  "The  Development  of  the  Mort  Arthur  Theme  in  Mediaeval 
Romance",  RR,  IV,  (1913).  In  the  section  of  that  article,  pp.  451  ff., 
entitled  "The  Verse-Chronicle  Source  of  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu",  there 
is  a  full  discussion  of  the  relation  of  our  romance  to  this  lost  source. 

810  Cp.  Geoffrey's  Historia  IX,  11,  Wace,  11.  10158  ff.,  Layamon, 
1L  23398  ff.  All  three  represent  Frollo  (Frolle,  etc.)  as  a  Roman,  by 
birth,  who  ruled  France  as  a  vassal  of  the  Roman  emperor  and  was 
slain  by  Arthur  in  the  latter's  invasion  of  France.  In  the  Lancelot, 
V,  374,  and  Mort  Artu,  VI,  346,  however,  he  is  a  German  prince 
whom  Arthur  kills  in  France.  He  is  an  ally,  moreover,  of  the  Romans 
—  hence,  according  to  the  Mort  Artu,  the  Roman  emperor  began  his 
war  against  Arthur.  Otherwise,  Lancelot,  in  the  present  romance,  has 
annexed  the  part  which  Frollo  plays  in  the  Geoffreyan  tradition. 

Constantine  was  the  son  of  Cador,  Duke  (or  Earl)  of  Cornwall. 
On  embarking  for  Avalon,  Arthur  named  him  as  his  successor  and  he 
defeated  and  slew  Mordred's  sons.  Cp.  Geoffrey,  XI,  2 — 4,  Wace,  11. 
13601ff.,  Layamon,  11.  28590 ff.,  28652ff. 


440  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

With  this  substitution  of  Lancelot  for  the  characters  just 
named,  the  old  narrative  of  Geoffrey  and  the  metrical  chronicles 
gains  immeasurably  in  dramatic  force,  and  every  incident  in  it 
is  given  new  life.  Arthur's  continental  war212  is  no  longer  inspired 
by  a  mere  idle  lust  of  conquest.  Though  ready  to  condone  the 
wrongs  which  he  himself  has  suffered,  he  is  driven,  contrary  to 
his  better  judgment,  into  this  disastrous  conflict  with  the  best 
beloved  of  his  followers  by  Gawain,  who,  in  his  eagerness  to  avenge 
his  own  brothers'  death,  pursues  unrelentingly  his  lifelong  friend 
and  companion-in-arms.  Again,  under  the  new  circumstances, 
Gawain 's  death  is  no  longer  simply  one  of  the  ordinary  chances 
of  war,  but  the  penalty  which  he  pays  for  his  inexorable  spirit 
of  vengeance.213  Similarly,  in  the  new  form  of  the  story,  Arthur's 
avenger  is  not  merely  a  relative  (Constantine),  whose  chief  aim 
is  to  secure  his  own  succession  to  the  throne,  but  the  friend  whose 
affection  for  his  dead  lord  remains  undiminished,  in  spite  of  the 
hostilities  with  which  the  latter  had,  in  his  last  days,  continued 
to  visit  him.  Even  Guinevere  profits  by  these  changes;  for  the 
object  of  the  passion  which  has  caused  her  to  violate  her  marriage 
vows  is  not  the  false  and  treacherous  Mordred,  as  in  the  Geoffreyan 
tradition,  but  a  man  who  was  the  lodestar  of  chivalry  in  his  age. 
Thus,  in  the  climax  of  the  action,  she  appears  as  a  fugitive  from 
the  traitor's  embraces,  not  as  his  partner  in  crime. 

It  should  be  observed,  moreover,  that  this  climax,  as,  indeed, 
the  whole  story  of  Arthur's  ruin,  is  invested  with  a  greater  tragic 
intensity  through  the  author's  original  conception  (not  inherited 

312  Geoffrey,  IX,  11,  X,  2,  Wace,  11.  10146ff.,  11452ff., 
Layamon,  11.  23397ff.,  25  465  ff.,  distinguish  two  expeditions  of  Arthur 
to  the  continent  —  the  first  against  Frollo,  the  ally  of  Rome,  the 
second  against  the  Romans,  who  are  led  by  their  emperor.  In  the 
Lancelot,  V,  336,  370,  the  order  of  the  expeditions  is  reversed  and 
Arthur  does  not  go  with  the  first.  In  the  Mort  Artu  we  have  the 
war  with  the  Romans  repeated,  but  Frollo  is  mentioned  only  once, 
VI,   346,  and  then  as  dead. 

813  The  wound  which  he  received  from  Lancelot  was  ultimately 
the  cause  of  his  death.  This  was  the  invention  of  the  author  of  the 
Mort  Artu,  like  the  whole  story  of  the  conflict  between  the  two 
characters. 


The  Vulgate  Cycle  441 

from  his  predecessors)  of  the  traitor  who  was  the  cause  of  that 
ruin  as  being  Arthur's  own  son  —  the  child  of  an  unwitting  act 
of  incest  which  he  had  committed  with  his  sister.  Thus,  as  in 
the  legend  of  Oedipus,  the  sin  of  the  father,  though  unconsciously 
perpetrated,  brings  with  it  the  blind  and  terrible  retribution  of 
the  Fates.214 

We  have  already  discussed  above215  our  author's  sources  for 
the  concluding  episodes  of  Arthur's  career  and  his  treatment  of 
the  same  —  also,  his  awkward  attempt  at  combining  the  ancient 
tradition  as  to  the  fate  of  the  king,  after  he  received  his  fatal 
wound,  with  the  late  fabrication  of  the  monks  of  Glastonbury  to 

314  G.  Paris,  Ruth-Merlin,  I,  p.  XLI  (including  note  3),  thought 
that  the  idea  of  Mordred's  incestuous  birth  was  imitated  from  the  story 
(Plutarch's  Brutus,  ch.  5)  that  Caesar  was  Brutus's  father.  He  sug- 
gests, also,  the  possible  influence  of  the  mediaeval  legend  of  Pope  Gre- 
gory. On  the  other  hand,  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  444,  believes  that  the 
story  of  Roland's  being  the  child  of  Charlemagne  and  his  sister  (Cp., 
for  example,  G.  Paris's  edition  of  the  Vie  de  Saint  Gilles,  pp.  LXIVff., 
LXXVf.  in  the  publications  of  the  Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Francais) 
is  the  source.  The  conception  is,  however,  probably  derived  from  the 
legend  of  Pope  Gregory,  which  was  much  the  most  widely  diffused 
of  all  the  numerous  tales  of  incest  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Moreover, 
other  Arthurian  romances  show  contamination'  with  this  legend,  which 
is  not  the  case  with  the  Brutus  or  Roland  stories.  Such  romances 
are  the  Latin  romances,  De  Ortu  Waluuanii  (thirteenth  century)  and 
its  cognates.  Cp.  my  edition  of  this  and  the  Meriadoc  romance, 
pp.  XXXV  ff.  Still  another  is  the  Chevalier  a  la  Manche.  The  Middle 
English  romance,  The  Awntyrs  of  Arthur  at  the  Terne  Wathelyne, 
also,  uses  a  legend  concerning  Gregory,  but  not  the  one  which  told 
of  his  incestuous  birth. 

G.  Paris,  loc.  cit.  states  that  this  conception,  as  applied  to  Mordred, 
first  appeared  in  the  Lancelot,  V,  284 f.  That  passage,  however,  was 
certainly  written  with  reference  to  the  Mort  Artu,  (VI,  325,  349, 
377)  and  I  believe  was  interpolated  by  the  author  of  the  latter.  Cp.  the 
present  writer,  RR,  IX,  382  ff.,  on  this  question.  The  detailed  account 
of  Mordred's  conception  in  the  Vulgate  Merlin  U,  128  ff.,  was,  of 
course,  inspired  by  the  passages  just  cited  from  the  Lancelot  and 
the  Mort  Artu. 

J.  Rhys's  contention,  Arthurian  Legend,  pp.  21  ff.  that  the  story 
is   of  Celtic  origin  is  unsupported  by  any  evidence. 

215  Cp.  pp.  439  f.,  above. 


442  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  effect  that  the  monarch  was  entombed  in  their  abbey.216  There 
was  an  epic  grandeur  about  the  great  tradition  which  the  writer 
was  here  handling,  but  the  tradition  was  not  Christian  in  origin. 
On  the  other  hand,  to  a  mediaeval  author,  however  secularly 
inclined,  it  would  have  seemed  unfitting  to  end  the  story  of  such 
high  and  serious  matters  on  a  non- religious  note,  and  so,  apart 
from  the  touches  of  Christianization  which  he  has  imparted  to 
the  last  scenes  of  Arthur's  life,  he  makes  the  passion-tost  Lance- 
lot and  his  surviving  kinsmen,  like  so  many  other  knights  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  both  real  and  fictitious,  seek  a  final  calm  in 
religious  devotion  and  a  hermitage.217 

~*™  Cp.  p.  431,  note  179  above. 

217  As  I  have  already  observed,  the  author  was  here  influenced 
especially  by  the  Queste,  VI,  198,  where  Perceval,  after  the  con- 
clusion of  the  Grail  quest,  retired  to  a  hermitage,  accompanied  by 
Bohort.  Among  the  heroes  of  mediaeval  romance  who  have  ended 
their  lives  in  a  similar  manner,  Guillanme  d'Orange,  Robert  le  Diable 
and  Guy  of  Warwick  are  conspicuous.  On  the  whole  subject  cp. 
T.  Walker,  Die  altfranz'osischen  Dichtungen  vom  Helden  im  Kloster. 
Tubingen,   1910. 

The  main  sources  of  the  Mort  Artu,  as  we  have  seen,  are  the 
Tristan  poems,  the  Lancelot,  and  Layamon's  lost  French  original. 
I  have,  also,  noted  Robert's  Merlin,  the  Queste  and  the  two  chan- 
sons de  geste  (one  or  the  other,  or  possibly  both),  Gaydon  and  Parise 
la  Duchesse,  as  minor  sources  of  the  branch.  I  do  not  think  that 
it  is  necessary  to  assume  with  Lot,  Lancelot,  pp.  194,  201,  note  2, 
that  our  author  drew  directly  from  Geoffrey's  Historia  or  Vita  Merlini. 
The  features  of  these  works  in  question,  I  doubt  not,  reached  our 
author  througli  his  lost  verse-chronicle  source. 

As  far  as  Chretien  (whose  works  must  have  been  known  to  him) 
is  concerned,  I  agree  with  Lot,  p.  199,  that  the  Lancelot  and  Per- 
ceval of  that  poet  have  had  no  perceptible  influence  on  the  Mort  Artu. 
His  Erec,  11.  6865  ff.,  however,  suggested,  I  believe,  the  crowning  of 
Bohort  and  Lionel,  VI,  377.  Possibly,  as  Lot  suggests,  p.  201,  note  2, 
it  may  have  influenced,  too,  his  conception  of  Avalon,  although,  per- 
sonally, 1  question  this.  The  same  scholar  has  also  suggested,  pp.  199 ff., 
the  influence  of  Pseudo-Wauchier  and  Wauchier  in  certain  matters  - 
correctly,  1  believe,  save  in  respect  to  the  episode  of  the  Maid  of  Ascalot's 
dead  body  and  the  boat,  which,  according  to  Lot,  he  derived  from 
Pseudo-Wauchier,  11.  20857 ff.  The  immediate  original  of  the  Mort 
Artu,  here,  however,  seems  plainly  the  Queste,  as  I  have  observed  above. 


Chapter  IV. 
Variant  Versions  of  Parts  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle.1 

We  have  so  far  discussed  the  successive  members  of  the  Vul- 
gate cycle,  as  they  have  descended  to  us  in  the  numerous  MSS. 
of  what  we  may  call,  roughly  speaking,  the  textus  receptus  of 
the  five  branches.  Before  we  leave  the  subject,  however,  it  should 
be  stated  that,  after  the  completion  of  the  Vulgate  cycle,  various 
attempts  were  made  to  substitute  new  narratives  for  different  parts 
of  the  cycle.  Thus,  leaving  aside  variants  of  more  limited  ex- 
tent, we  have: 

1.  The  so-called  Livre  d'Artus2  of  the  unique  thirteenth  cen- 
tury MS.  337  (fonds  frangais,  Bibliotheque  Nationale)3  —  a  long 
MerZm-continuation  which  was  intended  to  supplant  the  usual  Vul- 
gate version.  The  marked  variation  from  the  Vulgate  commences 
just  after  the  episode  in  which  Guinevere  excites  Morgan's  enmity 


As  will  be  seen  later  on,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer, 
the  whole  pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  cycle  is  derived  directly  from  the 
Vulgate,  but,  inasmuch  as  that  is  a  separate  cycle,  which  will  be 
discussed  below,  I  do  not  include  its  various  branches  in  the  present 
list  of  variants. 

*  P.  Paris,  RTR,  II,  392 ff.,  was  the  first  to  use  the  term, 
livre  d'Artus,  as  an  equivalent  of  "^Win-continuation."  Latterly, 
however,  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  apply  it  only  to  the  particular 
Merlin-continuation  which  is  preserved  in  MS.  337.  When  Sommer 
in  his  edition  of  Malory  III,  176,  says  that  the  last  three  branches  of 
the  Vulgate  cycle  combined  are  sometimes  called  the  "Livre  d'Artus," 
this  is  an  error.  He  has  misled  W.  H.  Schofield,  English  Literature 
from  the  Norman  Conquest  to  Chaucer,  p.  236.  (London  and  New 
York,  1906). 

The  MS.  is  defective  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end.  It 
belongs  to  the  last  quarter  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


444  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

by  disclosing  the  latter's  intrigue  with  young  Guionmar.4  From 
that  point  on,  this  version  constitutes  an  entirely  different  ro- 
mance— one,  too,  which,  in  spite  of  its  enormous  length  and  many 
repetitions  of  well-known  motifs,  is,  on  the  whole,  of  very  su- 


4  E.  Freymond,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  TAtt.  XVII1,  21  ff.,  calls  the 
narrative  through  this  episode  (Vulgate  Merlin,  II,  339,  1.  4),  Part  I, 
and  the  remainder,  Part  II.  In  the  Zs.  f  rom.  Ph.,  XV  T,  103, 
moreover,  he  ascribes  (rightly,  no  doubt)  the  two  parts  to  different 
authors,  on  the  following  grounds:  (1)  they  contradict  each  other  in 
somo  points,  (2)  Part  II  cites  its  sources  often,  as  Part  I  does  not, 
(3)  Part  I  is  pseudo-historical,  Part  II  an  Abenteuerroman.  These 
two  articles  of  Freymond's  "Zum  Livre  d'Artus,"  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph., 
XVI.  90ff.  (1892)  and  "Beitrage  zur  Kenntnis  der  altfranzbsischen 
Artusromane  in  Prosa,"  Zs.  f  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XVII1,  1.  ff.  (1895), 
are  the  best  studies  of  the  romance.  The  second  of  them  contains 
a  minute  analysis  of  it,  which  has  been  rendered  superfluous,  however, 
for  Part  II  (the  really  important  division  of  the  MS.)  by  Sommer's 
publication  (1913)  of  the  text  of  that  Part  as  vol.  VII  of  his  Vulgate 
Version  of  the  Arthurian  Romances.  (For  an  elaborate  review  of 
this  volume  from  the  textual  point  of  view  cp.  Miss  L.  M.  Gay,  MPh., 
XIV,  430  ff.)  The  first  of  Freymond's  articles  is  devoted  especiallyto 
the  sources  of  the  romance,  and  there  are,  also,  supplementary  notes 
on  this  subject  in  the  second  one.  It  appears  from  these  studies  that 
the  author  of  Part  II  knew  all  the  members  of  the  Vulgate  cycle. 
There  is  evidence  to  the  same  effect  with  regard  to  the  author  of 
Part  I,  save  in  the  case  of  the  Kstoire  del  Saint  Graal.  Among 
the  sources  of  Part  II  is,  also,  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez.  Cp.  Fried- 
wagner's  edition  of  the  latter,  p.  LXXXVI1I.  The  citation  of  Walter 
Map  as  an  authority,  pp.  69,  127,  et  passim  is,  of  course,  imitated 
from  the  Vulgate  cycle.  Freymond,  in  his  second  article,  p.  116,  note  2, 
observes  that  the  work  shows  no  knowledge  of  the  prose  Tristan. 
Nevertheless,  one  of  its  two  Pellinors  —  the  one  who  is  Perceval's 
father  —  was  probably  derived  from  that  romance.  Cp.  Bruce,  MPh., 
XVI,  343  If.  (1918),  where  Sommer's  charge  of  confusion  (p.  243, 
note  1)  in  the  romance  with  regard  to  the  two  Pellinors  is  also  shown 
to  be  erroneous.  The  importance  of  the  Livre  d'Artus  of  MS.  337, 
as  a  source  for  early  Arthurian  traditions,  is  much  exaggerated  by 
Freymond.  Its  sources  are  purely  literary,  and  none  of  them  possess 
any  particular  value.  Noteworthy  are  the  versions  which  it  contains, 
respectively,  of  the  Medusa-saga  (Laide  Semblance)  pp.  150ff.,  and  of 
the  pseudo-Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  pp.  247 ff. 


Variant   Versions  of  Parts  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  445 

perior  interest  to  the  version  which  it  is  intended  to  supplant.  The 
former,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  dry  pseudo-chronicle  —  the  latter, 
whilst  retaining  some  chronicle  elements  (especially,  in  the  earlier 
part),  such  as  narratives  of  Arthur's  personal  prowess  and  of  his 
wars  against  the  Saxons,  is,  in  the  main,  like  all  the  later  develop- 
ments of  Arthurian  romance  in  prose,  a  veritable  maze  of  duels, 
rescues  of  ladies  from  violence  and  of  knights  from  captivity, 
lovers'  assignations,  related  in  a  most  licentious  spirit5  —  an 
illicit  love-affair,  moreover,  being  placed  in  one  instance  in  naive 
juxtaposition  to  a  version  of  the  most  hallowed  of  Christian  le- 
gends, viz.  the  Harrowing  of  Hell6  —  and  so  on. 

2.  Just  as  the  Livre  oV Arius  of  MS.  337  was  intended  to 
take  the  place  of  the  Vulgate  Merlin-continuation,  pp.  339 — 466 
(end),  so  we  have  variants  for  considerable  stretches  of  the  narra- 
tive of  the  Lancelot,  which  were  intended  to  supplant  the  usual 
text  of  that  branch.  They  are  as  follows:  (a)  the  redaction,  still 
unprinted,  which  exists  in  a  number  of  MSS.  and  which  corre- 
sponds to  Sommer,  IV,  3 — 204  —  i.  c.  to  the  part  of  the  Lancelot 


6  E.  g.  pp.  67,  109,   191,  197,  276. 

In  his  brochure,  The  Structure  of  Le  Livre  d'Artus  and  its 
Function  in  the  Evolution  of  the  Arthurian  Prose  Romances 
(London  and  Paris,  1914),  Sommer,  adopting  an  erroneous  suggestion 
of  P.  Paris.  RTR,  II,  397,  argues  that  the  present  romance  is  derived 
from  a  lost  one  which  was  also  the  source  of  the  Vulgate  Merlin 
(continuation)  and  which  even  antedated  the  Lancelot.  The  argument, 
however,  is  mainly  based  on  differences  between  the  text  of  the  Vulgate 
Merlin  which  he  (Sommer)  has  published  (as  Vol.  2  of  his  Vulgate 
Version)  and  that  of  the  Livre  d'Artus  of  MS.  337.  These  differences 
lead  him  to  the  theory  af  a  common  source  for  the  two.  But  the 
probabilities  are  that  the  author  had  before  him  a  fuller  text  of  the 
Vulgate  Merlin  than  that  which  Sommer  has  printed.  Moreover, 
—  and  this  is  the  most  important  point  —  Sommer  is  demanding  such 
a  conformity  between  branches  of  the  cycle  as  the  romancers  never 
concerned  themselves  about.  On  the  lateness  of  the  present  romance, 
as  compared  with  the  Vulgate  Merlin,  see  Brugger,  Zs.  f  frz.  Spr. 
u.  Liu.,  XXVIII1,  57 f.  There  is  no  ground  whatever  for  Sommer's 
hypothesis  (prefatory  note  to  his  edition  and  above-mentioned  brochure) 
that  this  romance  was  once  part  of  a  lost  cycle. 
Cp.  pp.  247 ff.  and  261  ff.,  respectively. 


446  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

which  extends  from  the  departure  of  Lancelot  and  Galehaut  for 
Sorelois,  after  the  death  of  the  sorceress,  Camille,  to  Lancelot's 
arrival  in  the  capital  of  Gorre  to  fight  Meleagant  and  deliver 
Guinevere.7  Since  not  even  an  analysis  of  this  redaction  has  been 
published,  we  have  no  means  of  passing  judgment  on  its  value  or 
significance,  (b)  Another  and  much  briefer  account8  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  same  incidents,  corresponding  to  Sommer,  II,  5 — 185  — 
i.  e.,  from  the  false  Guinevere's  appearance  in  person  before  Arthur 
to  the  abduction  of  Gawain  by  Karados  of  the  Dolorous  Tower. 
(c)  A  variant  redaction9  of  the  adventures  of  Bohort,  Lionel, 
Hector  and  Gawain  in  the  long  quest  for  Lancelot  which  begins 
Sommer,  IV,  321.  Both  the  second  and  third  of  these  variant 
versions  are  abbreviated  and,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present  writer, 
without  importance,  (d)  A  greatly  shortened  version  of  Lancelot, 
V,  105 — 409  —  i.  e.  from  Lancelot's  arrival  at  Corbenic,  where 
he  is  destined  to  beget  Galahad,  to  the  end  of  the  branch  —  which 
is  preserved  in  the  MS.  of  the  prose  Tristan,  Add.  5474  (B.  M.).10 


7  In  the  prefatory  note  to  his  Vol.  IV,  Sommer  speaks  of  this 
redaction,  but  tells  us  nothing  of  its  contents.  Until  it  has  been 
printed  and  studied,  no  one  can  say  whether  it  is  earlier  or  later 
than   the  text  of  this  part  of   the  Lancelot  which   he   has   printed. 

8  Printed  as  an  appendix  in  Sommer  IV,  365  —  394.  It  is 
found  in  only  three  MSS.,  one  of  which  is  fragmentary.  One  of  the 
three  MSS.,  however,  is  MS.  768  (Bibl.  Nat.),  which  is,  on  the  whole, 
probably  the  best  single  MS.  of  the  Lancelot.  Lot,  Lancelot, 
pp.  359  ff.,  compares  it,  incident  by  incident,  with  the  usual  text  and 
concludes  that  it  is  an  earlier  draft  by  the  same  author  as  the  latter. 
One  cannot  point,  however,  to  anything  similar  to  this  suggested 
procedure  anywhere  else  in  the  Vulgate  cycle  and  Lot's  argument 
is  unconvincing.  The  version  is,  no  doubt,  one  of  the  numerous  later 
redactions  of  the  textus  receptus. 

9  Printed  as  an  appendix  by  Sommer  V,  413  —  474.  It  is 
preserved  only  in  Harley  MS.  6342  (British  Museum). 

10  It  runs  from  fol.  144a  to  162a  of  that  MS.  and  has  been 
printed,  along  with  the  episodes  that  immediately  precede  and  follow 
it,  by  Sommer  in  his  articles  entitled  "Galahad  and  Perceval",  MPh., 
V,  55ff.,  181  ff.  (1907),  291ff.  (1908).  The  text  begins  ibid.  p.  60, 
1.  18  and  ends  p.  337,  1.  27.  It  occupies  altogether  58  pages 
in    MPh.,  V.      For   inlermation    concerning    the    occurrence    of    this 


Variant  Versions  of  Parts  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  447 

Its  author  gives  us  here  a  variant  version  of  the  episodes  in  the 
Lancelot  that  relate  to  the  two  great  Grail  heroes,  Galahad  and 
Perceval,  omitting  everything  else.  This  narrative  of  the  lives 
of  the  two  characters  down  to  the  point  where  they  enter  upon 
the  Grail  quest  was  planned  to  serve  as  an  introduction  to  the 
Queste,  itself,  which  is  here  regularly  incorporated  into  the  MSS. 
of  the  prose  Tristan.  The  writer  does  not  depart  from  his  original 
in  any  essential11  and  the  text  is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present 
writer,  wholly  without  distinction.12 


intercalation  in  the  Tristan  MSS.,  generally,  see  Wechssler,  Uber  die 
verschiedenen  Redaktionen  des  Robert  von  Borron  zugeschriebenen 
Graal-Lancelot-CykluSy  pp.  18ff.  (Halle,  1895). 

11  The  points  of  difference  noted  by  Wechssler,  op.  city  p.  19, 
have  manifestly  no  importance  —  e.  g.  the  fact  that  Perceval  shares 
in  the  long  quest  for  Lancelot  from  the  beginning.  So,  too,  with  the 
inclusion  of  Tristan  among  Arthur's  knights  in  Malory's  Book  XI,  ch.  7. 
His  French  original  was  an  interpolation  in  a  Tristan  MS.,  so,  it  is 
not   strange,    if  Tristan   should   have   been  added  to  Arthur's  knights. 

12  Its  greatest  interest,  perhaps,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  represents, 
with  some  differences  and  in  a  somewhat  abbreviated  form,  the  original 
of  Malory's  Books  XI  and  XII.  On  the  subject  cp.  Sommer's  edition 
of  Malory,  III,  276 ff.,  286ff.,  where  the  variant  version,  however,  is 
given  the  inappropriate  name  of  Suite  de  Lancelot.  This  version  is 
so  obviously  a  mere  abstract  (with  unessential  variations)  of  the  Vul- 
gate Lancelot j  V,  105  —  409,  that  we  need  not  discuss  Sommer's 
theory,  MPh.,  V,  308 ff.,  about  its  supposed  connection  with  a  purely 
hypothetical  cycle.  One  may  say  somewhat  the  same  thing  of  the 
view  expressed  by  Wechssler,  loc.  cit.,  and  by  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Litt.  XXXIV1,  109ff.  (1909),  to  the  effect  that  the  text  is 
a  fragment  of  their  hypothetical  lost  Lancelot  of  the  pseudo-Robert 
cycle  of  the  prose-romances.  But  there  is  no  need  of  evoking  an 
imaginary  source,  when  we  have  an  extant  source  (the  Vulgate  Lancelot) 
that  tills  every  requirement.  The  fact  cited  by  Wechssler,  p.  20,  viz., 
that  the  episode  of  Tristan's  parting  with  Iseult  when  he  goes  to 
Arthurs  court  for  the  Grail  quest —  which  precedes  the  inserted 
account  of  the  early  lives  of  the  two  Grail  knights,  —  merely  repeats 
something  that  had  already  been  told,  (Loseth,  p.  260),  is  of  no 
importance  in  the  premises,  for,  however  we  may  interpret  this  repe- 
tition, the  dependence  of  the  Galahad-Perceval  episodes  on  the  Vulgate 
Lancelot   is   manifest.     My   own   suggestion    as  to  the  most  probable 


448  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

3.  Variant  redactions13  of  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  are  preserved 
in  the  following  works:  (a)  Malory's  Books,  XVIII,  XX,  and 
XXI.14  From  this  version,  which  includes  the  whole  romance, 
Tennyson  drew  his  knowledge  of  the  last  phase  of  the  story  of 
Arthur.  Especially  noteworthy  in  Malory's  version  is  the  fine 
episode,  Book  XXI,  Ch.  IX,  of  Lancelot's  last  interview  with 
Guinevere  (in  her  nunnery,  after  the  downfall  of  Arthur  and  the 
Round  Table),  in  which  the  two  lovers  express  their  resolve  to 
abjure  the  world  and  henceforth  lead  lives  of  religious  devotion. 
(b).  The  Italian  prose  compilation,  Tavola  Ritonda15  (thirteenth 
century)  contains,  inter  alia,  an  inferior  adaptation  of  the  com- 
pete romance,  based,  no  doubt,  on  some  lost  French  redaction 
of  the  Vulgate,  (c)  The  Middle  English  stanzaic  Le  Morte  Ar- 
thur,16  composed  near  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  which 

explanation  of  the  repetition  in  question  would  be  that  the  interpolator 
who  composed  these  episodes  for  the  purpose  stated  in  the  text  above, 
wishing  to  indicate  that  they  belonged  just  after  the  episodes  of 
Tristans  parting  with  Iseult  and  encounter  with  Palamedes,  prefaced 
his  interpolation  with  a  version  of  these  last-named  incidents.  His 
interpolation  was  then  inserted  into  the  MSS.,  but  owing  to  the  negli- 
gence of  the  scribes,  the  repetition  which  the  insertion  brought  about 
was  left  standing.  For  similar  repetitions  and  unevennesses  in  the 
Vulgate  cycle,  from  similar  causes,  cp.  RR,  IV,  465  f.  (including  notes). 

18  Only  versions  (b)  and  (d)  show  any  wide  departures  from  the 
narrative  of  the  Vulgate  text.  Nevertheless,  they  all  differ  enough 
from  the  Vulgate  to  be  counted  as  separate  redactions. 

14  For  detailed  comparisons  of  these  books  with  the  Old  French 
Vulgate  cp.  Sommer's  edition  of  Malory  III,  220 ff.,  249 ff.,  Bruce, 
"The  Middle  English  Metrical  Romance  Le  Morte  Arthur  (Harleian 
MS.  2252):  Its  Sources  and  Its  Relation  to  Sir  Thomas  Malory's  Morte 
DavthurM,  Anglia,  XXIII,  67ff.  (1900),  and  "The  Development  of  the 
Mort  Arthur  Theme  in  Mediaeval  Romance",  RR,  IV  (1913)  —  espe- 
cially, pp.  407 ff.  It  results  from  the  two  last-named  studies  that 
Malory  and  the  Middle  English  Le  Morte  Arthur  (Harleian  MS.  2252), 
11.  1672  —  3969,  go  back  to  a  lost  common  source,  which  was,  in 
its  turn,  a  mere  redaction  of  the   Vulgate  Mort  Artu. 

16  Edited  by  F.  Polidori  (Bologna,  1864-5).  The  Mort  Arthur 
section  will  be  found  Part  1,  pp.  524  —  545. 

16  Last  edited  (with  full  critical  apparatus),  in  1903,  by  Bruce, 
for    the    Early    English    Text    Society,    Extra    Series,    No.  88.      The 


Variant  Versions  of  Parts  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  449 

agrees  with  Malory  in  LL.  1672 — 3969  —  i.  e.  from  the  scene 
in  which  Arthur  comes  upon  Agravain  and  his  brothers  discussing 
Lancelot's  intrigue  with  Guinevere  down  to  the  end,17  but  in  what 
precedes  offers  a  unique  version  of  the  incidents  in  this  part  of 
the  story.18  (d)  Li  Chantari  di  Lanoellotto,19  an  Italian  poem  (pro- 
bably from  the  first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century),  adapted  with 
considerable  changes  from  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  and  strongly 
contaminated  with  elements  from  the  prose  Tristan.  This  poem, 
which  is  of  very  poor  quality,  gives,  also,  a  complete  version  of 
the  Mort  Arthur  incidents.20 


alliterative    Morte  Arthure   (see   p.   27,    above)    seems    to   have    no 
connection  with  the  prose  romances. 

17  Bruce,  p.  92,  Sommer,  VI,  269. 

18  For  the  proof  of  this,  see  my  article  in  Anglia,  XXIII,  cited 
above  —   more  especially,  pp.  75  ff.,   87ff. 

19  The  best  edition  is  that  of  Walter  De  Gray  Birch  (London, 
1874).  It  is  written  in  ottava  rima.  For  a  detailed  analysis  and 
comparison  of  its  narrative  with  that  of  the  Vulgate  cp.  Bruce,  RR, 
IV,  436 ff.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  this  poem  was  based  on  some 
earlier  Italian  prose  version  of  the  Vulgate,  rather  than  directly  on 
the  Vulgate,  itself. 

20  For  foreign  versions  of  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  which  do  not 
constitute  separate  redactions  cp.  my  edition  of  that  romance,  pp.  XXIIIff. 


Chapter  V. 
Date  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle. 

We  have  seen  that  the  ascription  of  the  last  three  branches 
of  the  Vulgate  cycle  to  Walter  Map,  which  is  so  common  in  the 
manuscript  tradition,  is  a  fabrication,  and  that,  consequently,  we 
cannot  accept  it  as  affording  any  genuine  evidence  touching  the 
date  of  the  cycle.  Nevertheless,  we  have  in  the  well-known  pas- 
sage of  Helinandus's  chronicle,  quoted  above,1  a  sufficient  indi- 
cation with  regard  to  the  downward  limit  of  date  of  at  least  one 
member  of  the  series  —  viz.  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal  (Grand 
St.  Graal)  —  and  hence,  inferentially,  of  others.  Since  at  the 
end  of  that  chronicle  the  author  speaks  of  King  John  of  England 
as  still  reigning,  it  is  indisputable  that  this  work  —  and  hence 
the  Estoire,  to  which  it  alludes  —  was  composed  before  1216, 
the  year  of  John's  death.2    But,  if  the  view  of  the  evolution  of 


1  Cp.  p.  254,  above. 

*  That  this  was  the  true  terminus  ad  quern  for  the  dating  of 
Helinandus's  chronicle  was  first  pointed  out  in  the  Introduction,  p.  XXV, 
note,  to  the  edition  (1905)  of  that  author's  Vers  de  la  Mort  by 
F.  Wulff  and  E.  Walberg  (Societe  des  Anciens  Textes  Frangais).  In 
my  article,  Arthuriana,  RR,  III,  (1912)  —  particularly,  pp.  185  ff.  — 
I  called  attention  to  the  importance  of  this  discovery  for  the  dating 
of  the  Vulgate  cycle. 

In  the  passage  cited  above,  Helinandus  uses  the  following  words: 
"Hanc  historiam  latine  scriptam  invenire  non  potui,  sed  tantum  gallice 
scripta  habetur  a  quibusdam  proceribus,  nee  facile,  ut  aiunt,  tota  in- 
veniri  potest."  Now,  Brugger,  Zs.  f.frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX1,  108 
and  XXXVI2,  208,  has  interpreted  these  words  as  referring  not  merely 
to  the  Estoire,  but  to  the  whole  Grail  cycle  of  the  prose-romances. 
As  will  be  seen  from  the  next  sentence,  one  may  grant  the  correctness 
of  this  interpretation  —  only  with  the  restrictions  that  the  Merlin- 
continuation  was  not  yet  a  part  of  the  cycle  and  that  the  Lancelot 
had  not  yet  attained  its  full  enormous  length. 

In  his  elaborate  and,  in  many  respects,  valuable  discussion  of  the 


Date  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  451 

the  Vulgate  cycle  which  is  developed  below3  is  correct,  only  one 
of  its  branches,  the  Mer ^-continuation,  was  composed  later  than 
the  Estoire.  We  may,  therefore,  affirm  with  certainty  that  by 
1216  the  whole  cycle,  with  the  exception  of  this  continuation,  was 


date  of  the  Vulgate  cycle,  Lancelot,  pp.  126ff.,  Lot  unfortunately 
overlooked  Wulff  and  Walberg's  discovery,  which  renders  his  dating 
of  the  composition  of  the  cycle  (p.  140),  viz.  1221—1225  (inclusive) 
impossible. 

It  is  worth  recording  that  in  a  private  communication,  which  I 
received  from  Professor  Wolfgang  Golther  early  in  1920,  he  expressed 
the  conviction  that  the  whole  passage  about  the  Grail  in  Helinandus 
is  merely  a  late  thirteenth  century  interpolation.  He  acknowledges, 
however,  that  he  is  unable  to  produce  any  "unmittelbare  Beweise"  in 
support  of  this  view,  and,  so  long  as  that  is  the  case,  it  seems  better 
to  accept  the  passage  as  genuine. 

The  fact  that  Manessier  and  Gerbert  in  their  continuations  to 
Chretien's  Perceval  use  the  Vulgate  cycle  is  of  no  value  for  fixing 
the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  date  of  the  cycle,  since  the  exact  dates 
of  these  writers  are  unknown.  Manessier  wrote  some  time  between 
1211  and  1244.  That  is  all  we  know.  Gerbert  wrote  probably  about 
1225.  For  a  fuller  consideration  of  these  matters  cp.  pp.  29 Off., 
above. 

The  earliest  MS.  of  any  part  of  the  cycle  —  viz.  the  first  division 
of  MS.  768  (Bibl.  Nat.),  which  contains  the  first  part  of  the  Lancelot  — 
dates  from  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Cp.  Lot,  Lancelot, 
p.  135.  The  earliest  dated  MS.  of  any  part  of  the  cycle,  —  MS.  342 
(Bibl.  Nat.),  which  contains  the  last  part  of  the  Lancelot,  Queste  and 
Mort  Artu  —  belongs  to  1274. 

Interesting,  though  of  little  value  for  the  dating  of  the  cycle,  is 
the  earliest  known  allusion  to  the  prose  Lancelot  —  first  pointed  out 
by  P.  Meyer,  Romania,  VI,  494 ff.  (1877)  —  viz.  in  a  thirteenth 
century  MS.  (British  Museum,  Add.  21212,  fol.  4)  of  the  prologue  to 
a  French  version  (now  lost,  if  it  ever  existed)  of  the  Philippis  of 
Guillaume  le  Breton.  The  Lancelot  is  there  referred  to  as  "li 
livres  Lancelot  Ou  il  n'a  de  rime  un  seul  mot."  According  to  this 
prologue,  the  version  of  the  Philippis  was  executed  at  the  instance 
of  Gile  de  Flagi,  of  whom  the  last  mention  we  have  dates  from  1236. 
Meyer  was  inclined  to  ascribe  the  allusion  to  the  end  of  the  twenties 
of  the  century,  but,  obviously,  this  is  pure  conjecture.  It  may  have 
been  penned  even  after  1236,  for  no  one  knows  when  Gile  de  Flagi 
actually  died. 

Cp.  p.  455,  below. 


3 


452  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

in  existence.  To  be  sure,  the  Lancelot  of  that  date  was,  most  likely, 
of  considerably  less  bulk  than  the  huge  work  of  our  extant  MSS. 
In  determining  the  upward  limit  of  date  for  the  cycle,  we 
have,  at  least,  one  important  fact  to  guide  us  —  namely,  that 
the  Mort  Artu  was  composed  after  the  pretended  exhumation  of 
Arthur  and  Guinevere  at  Glastonbury  in  1191,  for  in  this  branch 
we  have  obviously  combined  with  the  old  Celtic  tradition  of  the 
wounded  Arthur's  journey  to  Avalon  the  new  invention  which 
the  monks  of  Glastonbury  first  put  into  circulation  in  that  year 
to  the  effect  that  the  great  king  and  his  consort  were  really  buried 
in  the  local  abbey.4  It  does  not,  however,  seem  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  the  author  of  the  Mort  Artu  would  have  made  so  serious 
a  concession  to  this  invention,  unless  it  had  already  gained  a 
pretty  widespread  credence  at  the  time  that  he  composed  his  ro- 
mance, and  for  that  a  period  of  at  least  ten  years  would  be  re- 
quired; indeed,  an  even  longer  time  would  seem  more  likely.  In 
view  of  these  circumstances,  it  appears  safe  to  conjecture  that  the 
composition  of  the  Mort  Artu  fell  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  year  1205.  But  this  romance  presupposes  the  existence  of 
the  Lancelot  (in  some  form  or  other)  and  the  Queste,  so  that  the 
composition  of  these  latter  romances  would  fall  in  the  closing 
years  of  the  twelfth  century   (doubtless,   the  last  decade).5     On 

*  Cp.  p.  264,  above. 

6  All  sorts  of  efforts  have  been  made  to  establish  the  terminus 
a  quo  of  different  members  of  the  cycle — especially,  by  means  of  the 
sources.  But  in  not  a  single  instance  can  we  fix  definitely  the  date 
of  these  sources  themselves.  In  connection  with  this  question,  it  should 
be  observed  that  Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  134,  is  wrong  in  limiting  the 
beginning  of  Wauchier's  literary  activity  to  1206.  Brugger,  Zs.  f. 
frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.y  XXXVI2,  45  ff.  (1910)  had  already  proved  con- 
vincingly that  this  limitation  (which  originated  with  P.  Meyer,  Hist. 
litt.  de  la  France,  XXXIII,  291)  was  unwarranted  and  that  his 
Perceval-co\itimia.ti(m,  indeed,  may  possibly  have  been  written  as  far 
back  as  the  eighties  of  the  twelfth  century.  Moreover,  most  students 
who  make  a  distinction  between  Wauchier  and  Pseudo-Wauchier  —  and 
it  is  the  latter  on  which  the  authors  of  the  Lancelot  and  Queste  have 
drawn  particularly  —  will  agree  that  whatever  may  be  the  date  of 
Wauchier,  Pseudo-Wauchier's  date  is  still  earlier. 

It    is   not    necessary    to    discuss    again   in   this   connection    such 


Date  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  453 

the  other  hand,  the  Estoire  del  Saint  Graal,  whioh,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  certainly  in  existence  by  1216,  contains  allusions  to 
the  Mort  Artu6  —  consequently,  we  may  place  the  composition 
of  this  branch  with  a  considerable  degree  of  confidence  between 
1205  and  1216.  Finally,  the  MerZm-continuation  of  the  cycle, 
which  was  written  to  connect  the  Estoire  and  the  Lancelot,  was, 
of  course,  later  than  either,  and,  if  we  may  judge  by  its  allusions 
to  the  Perlesvaus,  later  even  than  that  romance.  The  most  pro- 
bable date,  then,  for  this  latest  division  of  the  cycle  would  be  a 
few  years  before  1230. 

fundamental  sources  of  the  Vulgate  cycle  as  Chretien's  Perceval  (not 
to  mention  his  other  works)  or  the  French  original  of  Ulrich's  Lanzelet, 
since  the  dates  of  these  sources  are  too  indefinite  to  help  us  materially 
in  our  present  inquiry.  If  the  dates,  however,  of  these  romances, 
respectively,  which  we  have  argued  for  above  are  accepted,  we  should 
have  the  eighties  of  the  twelfth  century  as  the  terminus  a  quo  for 
the  Lancelot  —  the  earliest  member  of  the  cycle.  The  same  con- 
clusion is  fortified  with  regard  to  the  cycle,  in  general,  by  our  dating 
of  Robert's  Joseph  (a  source  of  the  Estoire  and  Queste)  and  Merlin 
(used  in  the  Vulgate  Merlin  and  Mort  Artu). 

The  Tristan  romances,  which  are  drawn  upon  so  freely  in  the 
Mort  Artu,  are  relatively  too  early  to  add  anything  to  the,  evidence 
in  the  case.  The  chansons  de  geste,  Gaydon  and  Parise  la  Duchessc, 
which  are  apparently  sources  (one  or  the  other,  or  both)  of  the 
poisoned  fruit  incident  in  this  branch  were  written  not  later  than  the 
first  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  but  the  extant  form  of  Gaydon 
is  probably  not  the  earliest,  and  both  poems  may  really  be  productions 
of  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth.  For  a  detailed  examination  of  the 
evidence,  cp.  Bruce,  Mort  Artu,  pp.  XXIX ff. 

The  date  of  Raoul  d'Houdenc's  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez  (a  source 
of  the  Lancelot  and  Merlin)  falls  in  the  latter  part  of  the  twelfth 
or  first  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  —  no  one  can  say  which.  Cp. 
Friedwagner's  edition,  pp.  LXIII,  f.  (Halle,   1897). 

Lot,  Lancelot,  p.  165,  —  observes  that  the  raising  of  the  host 
(cp.  Queste,  VI,  189)  is  first  mentioned  in  the  statutes  of  Eudes  de 
Sully,  bishop  of  Paris,  1196 — 1208.  But  the  practise  was  certainly 
earlier.  See  the  eleventh  century  example  from  St.  Gall,  given  by 
Karl  Young,  The  Dramatic  Associations  of  the  Easter  Sepulchre, 
pp.  30 f.  (Madison,  Wisconsin,   1920). 

Following  the  authorities  on  mediaeval  armour  who  state,  appar- 
ently with   one  accord,   that  horse-armour  was  first  introduced  in  the 


454  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 


beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  present  writer  in  his  edition 
of  the  Mort  Artu,  pp.  XXXII f.  used  this  supposed  fact  as  affording 
an  approximate  terminus  a  quo  for  the  romance.  He  has  since 
discovered,  however,  mention  of  elaborate  horse-armour  being  worn 
as  early  as  1187  by  followers  of  Count  Baldwin  of  Flanders.  Cp. 
A.  Cartellieri,  Philipp  II.  August,  Konig  von  F'rankreich,  I,  255 f. 
(3  vols.,  Leipzig  and  Paris,   1899  —  1910). 

6  One  might,  of  course,  query  whether  these  allusions  to  the 
Mort  Artu  in  the  Estoire  may  not  be  late  insertions  —  especially, 
since  there  are  other  grounds  for  suspecting  that  the  original  text  of 
the  Estoire  underwent  subsequent  changes  and  additions.  Cp.  p.  371 
note  1  above  and  RR,  IX,  380.  As  long,  however,  as  no  cogent 
reasons  are  offered  for  regarding  the  allusions  in  question  as  late  inter- 
polations,   we  may  accept  them  as  belonging  to  the  original  Estoire. 

The  Mort  Artu  plainly  presupposes  the  Queste,  but  is,  itself, 
referred  to  in  the  Estoire  (if  the  above-mentioned  allusions  are  not 
late  additions  to  the  Estoire).  This  then  would  confirm  the  conclusion 
which  we  reached  pp.  428 ff.,  above,  that  the  last-named  romance  was 
composed  after  the  Queste. 


Chapter  VI. 
Development  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle. 

It  will  be  observed  from  the  above  discussions  that  according 
to  general  agreement,1  the  Lancelot  (in  a  shorter  and  earlier  form) 
was  the  oldest  romance  in  the  Vulgate  cycle  and  that  the  other 
branches  postulate  its  existence.  The  evidence  which  we  have  pre- 
sented as  to  the  priority  of  the  Queste  over  the  remaining  branches 
of  the  cycle  prove  that  it  was  composed  next  to  the  Lancelot.  Then 
followed  the  Mort  Artu,  which  is  dependent  on  the  Queste,  but 
is  referred  to  in  the  Estoire  —  next  expansions  and  extensions 
of  the  original  Lancelot  that  connect  it  with  the  Queste  and  Mori 
Artu,2  and  after  that,  the  Estoire.  That  the  Merlin3  was  the 
last  of  the  branches  to  be  composed  has  never  been  disputed. 

If  the  scheme  of  relative  dates  which  is  set  forth  in  this 
summary  is  correct,  it  is  manifest  that  the  cyclic  character  of  the 
five  great  romances  with  which  we  are  dealing  does  not  spring 
from  the  fact  that  they  were  composed  in  execution  of  a  pre- 
conceived design,  whether  on  the  part  of  a  single  author  or  of 
more  than  one  author,  working  in  collaboration,4  but  rather  from 


1  Lot  constitutes  a  partial  exception  to  this  statement,  inasmuch 
as  he  supposes  (pp.  122  f.)  that,  after  the  author  of  the  Lancelot  had 
written  a  large  part  of  that  romance,  lie  turned  aside,  in  order  to 
compose  the  Estoire,  and  only  resumed  his  work  on  the  Lancelot  after 
he  had  completed  the  Estoire.     Cp.  p.  378,  note  4,  above. 

2  The  passages  here  referred  to  occur  especially  in  the  later 
portions  of  the  Lancelot,  beginning  with  Gawain's  visit  to  the  Grail 
castle.  They  are  particularly  numerous  in  the  so-called  Agravain 
division  of  the  Lancelot.    On  these  subjects  cp.  pp.  402,  note  71,  above. 

3  Strictly  speaking,  the  Vulgate  il/er/in-continuation,  which  its 
author  combined  with  the  old  prose-rendering  of  Robert's  Merlin  to 
make  up  the  Vulgate  Merlin.    On  its  relative  date,  cp.  p.  395,  above. 

4  These  are  the  theories  of  Lot  and  Brugger,  respectively,  and 
will  be  discussed  below.     Brugger  propounded  his  firsi. 


456  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

the  romancers'  practise  of  attaching  their  inventions  concerning 
any  particular  phase  of  Arthurian  tradition  to  those  of  their  pre- 
decessors concerning  some  other  phase  of  that  tradition.5     In  a 
period,  then,  when  the  sense  of  literary  property  was  non-existent 
and  the  sense  of  personal  authorship  not  very  strong,  such  a  prac- 
tise was  entirely  natural,  and  the  result  was  the  creation  of  the 
vast  composite  cycle  before  us.  We  face,  then,  virtually,  the  same 
conditions  that  have  called  into  existence  the  other  great  cyclic 
works  of  the  past  —  for  example,  the  Greek  cyclic  poems  con- 
cerning the  siege  of  Troy  or  the  cycle  of  Guillaume  d'Orange 
among  the  Old  French  chansons  de  geste.6    An  incitement  to  the 
composition  of  a  connected  series  of  romances  on  the  Arthurian 
theme  was  supplied  by  Robert  de  Boron's  Joseph-Merlin  and  its 
proposed  sequels,  but  how  little  Robert's  series  really  influenced 
the  Vulgate  cycle  as  a  model  is  patent  from  the  fact  that  the 
author  of  the  Queste  of  this  cycle  threw  overboard  that  poet's 
Grail  hero  and  attached  his  work  to  a  romance  (the  Lancelot) 
to  which  there  is  nothing  even  remotely  corresponding  in  Robert's 
series.   By  this  act  an  element  that  was  totally  alien  to  the  Joseph- 


6  The  cyclic  connection  is,  largely,  of  a  general  kind,  and,  in  the 
case  of  the  Lancelot,  especially,  the  connecting  episodes  are  most 
often   cyclic  in  effect,  not  in  aim.     Cp.  Bruce,  RR,  X,   121. 

6  Cp.  RR,  IV,  463 f.  The  interval  that  separated  the  composition 
of  the  various  members  of  the  Vulgate  cycle  was  not  so  long  as  in 
the  case  of  the  other  cyclic  works  mentioned  above.  —  The  romances 
that  make  up  the  Guillaume  d'Orange  cycle  are  also  combined  in  some 
cyclic  MSS.  —  e.  g.  MS.  24369  (fonds  francos,  Bibl.  Nat.),  which 
contains  17  romances  of  the  total  of  24  extant  and  the  Boulogne  MS. 
which  contains  11.  The  latter  MS.  ends  with  the  words,  Explicit 
li  Roumans  de  Guillaume  d'Orange,  on  which  Bedier,  Legendes 
Epiques2,  I,  8,  remarks:  "cette  rubrique  nous  est  temoin  que  les 
hommes  du  XIII e  et  du  XIV e  siecle,  lisant  nos  chansons,  croyaient 
lire  un  seul  roman.''  The  romances  in  such  a  collection,  however, 
were,  of  course,  by  different  authors.  Grober,  Grundriss,  II,  997 f. 
tried  to  trace  the  history  of  the  development  of  the  Arthurian  Vulgate 
cycle  by  an  examination  of  the  grouping  of  the  romances  in  the  extant 
MSS,  but  these  MSS.  are  too  late  to  throw  any  light  on  this  subject 
and  Grober's  effort  is  a  failure. 


Development  of  the  Vulgate  Cycle  457 

Merlin,  etc.,  in  every  way,  became  incorporated  into  the  history 
of  the  Grail.  Moreover,  if  Robert's  cycle  had,  in  any  strict  sense, 
furnished  the  model  of  a  pre-conceived  plan  for  the  Vulgate  cycle, 
the  execution  of  this  plan  would,  of  course,  have  begun  with  the 
composition  of  the  Estoire  (which  corresponds  to  Robert's  Jo- 
seph), but,  to  say  nothing  of  the  priority  of  the  Lancelot,  the 
whole  weight  of  evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  Estoire  is  later 
than  the  Queste,  and  even  than  the  Mort  Artu. 

The  cyclic  character  of  the  romances,  it  should  be  said  in 
conclusion,  was  finally  still  further  strengthened  by  the  occasional 
cross-references  which  were  inserted  in  the  different  branches  by 
individual  scribes  or  by  assembleurs.  It  was  the  latter  —  them- 
selves, doubtless,  scribes  —  who  started  the  manuscript  tradition 
of  our  extant  MSS.  by  bringing  copies  of  these  romances  together 
and  editing  them  in  a  very  rudimentary  fashion.7 


7  Brief  anticipatory  cross-references  in  any  one  branch  to  later 
members  of  the  cycle  must  have  got  into  the  manuscript  tradition  in 
this  manner  —  occasionally,  also,  somewhat  longer  interpolations  of 
considerable  importance  —  e.  g.  the  interpolations  in  the  Lancelot 
which  are  based  on  the  Vulgate  and  MS.  337  M er/m-continuations 
and  Perlesvaus,  respectively.  Cp.  RR,  X,  393 f.  The  passages,  re- 
marked on  above,  pp.  402  f.,  which  serve  to  connect  the  Lancelot  with 
the  Estoire  probably  belong  to  a  somewhat  earlier  stage  in  the 
development  of  the  Lancelot.  How  artless  an  interpolator  could  be 
is  shown  by  the  instance  in  the  Lancelot,  III,  117,  where  King  Pelles 
is  spoken  of  as  dead  although  his  whole  share  in  the  story  falls  later 
in  the  romance.  Of  course,  this  interpolator  was  writing  with  the 
complete  romance  before  him.  Another  speaks  unequivocally,  III,  429, 
of  the  Lancelot  being  "adjusted"  to  the  Grail  story.  —  It  seems 
likely  that  the  insertions  in  the  Lancelot  and  Queste  of  passages 
taken  virtually  verbatim  from  the  Estoire  (cp.  p.  376,  note  3,  and 
p.  402,  note  72,  above),  was  the  work  of  assembleurs.  So,  too,  with 
the  recapitulation,  here  and  there  in  the  Lancelot,  of  preceding  ad- 
ventures. On  the  general  conditions  under  which  our  extant  manuscript 
tradition  was  established,  cp.  Bruce,  MPh.,  XVI,   113ff. 


Chapter  VII. 

The  Pseudo- Robert  de  Boron  cycle  of  the  Prose 

Romances. 

The  second  of  the  prose  cycles,  as  far  as  it  has  been  preserved, 
is  ascribed  in  the  MSS.  to  Robert  de  Boron.1  This  ascription, 
however,  is  unquestionably  false,2  and  we,  therefore,  retain  the 
manuscript  designation  only  in  the  modified  form  which  will  be 
noted  above  and  which  has  latterly  become  general. 

The  feature  of  this  second  cycle  which  distinguishes  it  essen- 
tially from  the  Vulgate  (Walter  Map)  cycle  is  the  fact  that  in 
the  former  the  characters  of  the  Tristan  story  play  a  part,  which 
is  not  the  case  with  the  latter.  These  characters,  Tristan,  Marc, 
Iseult,  etc.,  have  evidently  been  introduced  into  the  cycle  from 
the  prose  Tristan.3 

Of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle  mere  fragments  have  survived. 
Curiously  it  seems  to  have  been  more  popular  abroad  than  in  the 
country  of  its  origin  (France),  so  that  for  important  portions  of 
the  cycle  we  have  only  versions  in  foreign  languages  —  especially 
Portuguese  and  Spanish  —  the  French  originals  having  been  lost. 
In  fact,  the  very  existence  of  this  cycle  was  first  pointed  out  by 
G.  Paris  in  1886.4   From  indications  in  the  Huth-Merlin  —  i.  e. 


1  For  the  passages  concerned,  cp.  G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin, 
pp.  XXVIIf. 

2  Everything  shows  this  —  its  dependence  on  the  Galahad  Quest  e, 
the  difference  of  style,  the  character  of  the  incidents  —  secular  and 
often  fantastic,  etc.  Cp.,  especially,  A.  Pauphilet,  Romania,  XXXVI,  591  ff. 

8  The  prose  Tristan,  in  its  earlier  forms,  is  undoubtedly  anterior 
to  the  Pseudo  -  Robert  cycle.  We  treat  the  latter  first,  however, 
—  immediately  after  the  discussion  of  the  Vulgate  —  because  of  its 
close  connection  with  the  Vulgate. 

*  Cp.  his  Introduction  to  the  Huth-Merlin  —  particularly,  pp.  1  ff. 
This   Introduction,    although    it    needs    correction   in    some    important 


The  Pseudo- Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances    459 

the  (somewhat  abbreviated)  Merlin  branch  of  this  cycle  —  he 
was  able  to  infer  the  existence  of  other  members  of  the  cycle  and 
to  suggest  what  would  probably  prove  to  be  their  distinctive  cha- 
racteristics —  suggestions  that  have  been  amply  confirmed  by 
subsequent  discoveries. 

Notwithstanding  the  view  to  the  contrary  held  by  G.  Paris, 
Wechssler,  and  others/  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle  is,  indisputably, 
a  mere  derivative  of  the  Vulgate  cycle  —  a  new  attempt  to  give 
vitality  to  the  Arthurian  theme  in  its  prose  forms,  by  a  recasting 
of  the  older  cycle.  Originally,  no  doubt,  the  cycle  was  conceived 
of  as  consisting,  like  the  Vulgate,  of  the  following  divisions:  1. 
Estoire  (or  Livre)  del  Saint  Graal,  2.  Merlin  (prose-rendering 
of  Robert's  Merlin),  3.  ikferfo'ft-continuation,  4.  Lancelot,  5.  Queste 
del  Saint  Graal,  6.  Mort  Arthur.  Not  all  of  the  six  divisions, 
however,  were  re-written  for  the  new  cycle. 

1.  The  first  of  these  branches  has  not  come  down  to  us  — 
very  likely,  because  it  differed  so  slightly,  if  at  all,  from  the 
Vulgate  Estoire  that  the  few  copyists  who  ever  occupied  them- 
selves with  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle6  rarely  considered  it  worth 

points,  laid  the  foundation  for  all  subsequent  investigation  with  regard 
to  the  formation  of  the  prose  cycles.  Valuable,  too,  is  Edward  Wechssler 's 
Habilitationschrift,  Uber  die  verschiedenen  Redaktionen  des  Robert 
de  Boron  zugeschriebenen  Graal-Lancelot-Cyklus  (Halie,  1895). 

In  his  discussion  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  LitL, 
XXIX1,  114ff.  (1905),  Brugger  accepts  Wechssler's  results,  in  the 
main,  but,  inter  alia,  regards  the  cycle  as  cast  in  the  form  of  a 
trilogy  from  the  beginning. 

At  present,  much  the  most  informative  work  on  the  Pseudo- 
Robert  cycle  is  E[lla]  Vettermann's  above-mentioned  treatise  —  especially 
pp.  89 ff.,  299 ff.  We  have  here  an  excellent  critical  exposition  of 
the  various  theories  concerning  the  origin  and  constitution  of  the  cycle. 
The  author,  herself,  adopts  Wechssler's  theory. 

8  E.  g.,  Brugger. 

6  The  fact  that  only  fragments  of  this  cycle  have  survived  in 
the  original  French  shows  that  it  was  never  widely  diffused. 

Wechssler,  p.  14,  conjectured  that  the  Estoire  of  the  cycle 
might  be  preserved  in  the  Portuguese  form  in  a  certain  Torre  do 
Tombo  (Lisbon)  MS.  (he  is  referring  to  MS.  Alcobaca  643  of  that 
library),    but    it    seems   from    Otto    Klob,    "Beitrage    zur    Spanischen 


460  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

their  while  to  transcribe  for  the  new  series  a  romance  that  was 
already   so  widely  diffused  in  the  Vulgate  form.7    In  the  MS. 


und  Portugiesischen  Graal-Litteratur,"  Zs.  f.  ram.  Ph.,  XXVI, 
169ff.  (1902),  that  the  Portuguese  text  in  question  —  misleadingly 
entitled  Liuro  de  josep  abaramatia  —  is  a  mere  translation  of 
the  Vulgate  Estoire,  executed  in  1313  and  preserved  here  in  a 
sixteenth  century  transcription.  Klob,  pp.  185 ff.,  describes,  also, 
a  Spanish  Libro  de  josep  abarimatia  in  MS.  2.  G.  5  of  the  Royal 
Library  at  Madrid  which  shows  a  few  variations  in  the  narrative,  as 
compared  with  Furnivall's  edition  of  the  Vulgate  Estoire,  but  none 
that  would  warrant  the  inference  that  it  represents  a  lost  (French) 
Pseudo-Robert  Estoire.  An  edition  of  this  Spanish  text  by  Karl  Pietsch 
and  W.  A.  Nitze,  along  with  a  greatly  abridged  Merlin  (La  Estoria 
de  Merlin)  and  Lancarote  (Lancelot)  of  the  same  MS.,  was  announced 
some  years  ago  by  the  Gesellschaft  *fiir  Romanische  Literatur,  but 
has  not  yet  appeared.  Pietsch,  however,  in  "MS.  2  —  G — 5  of  the 
Palace  Library  at  Madrid,"  MPh.,  XI,  Iff.  (1913),  has  studied  the 
relations  of  the  Arthurian  texts  in  this  MS.  to  El  Baladro  del  Sabio 
Merlin  con  sus  Profecias  (Burgos,  1498)  and  the  Spanish  Demandas 
of  1515  (Toledo)  and  1535  (Sevilla),  both  editions  of  the  Demanda, 
in  his  opinion  (p.  4)  being  derived  from  a  Merlin  y  demanda  del 
Santo  Grial  (Sevilla,  1500),  of  which,  however,  no  copy  is  now  known 
to  be  extant.  He  thinks  (p.  14)  that  the  Baladro,  the  lost  text 
last-named  and  the  texts  contained  in  MS.  2 — G — 5  all  go  back  to 
a  common  hypothetical  Spanish  source.  As  regards  the  Baladro, 
Pietsch  is  undoubtedly  wrong,  for  this  text  is  certainly  nothing  but 
an  incomplete  Spanish  version  of  the  lost  Conte  del  Brait.  For 
a  criticism  of  Pietsch  cp.  Brugger,  Archiv  f.  d.  Studium  der 
neueren  Spr.,  Vol.  133,  pp.  229,  (1920).  For  a  study  by  Pietsch 
of  the  language,  partly  non-Castilian,  of  these  texts  cp.  his  "On  the 
language  of  the  Spanish  Grail  fragments,"  MPh.,  XIII,  369 ff.  (1915), 
625 ff.  (1916).  Cp.,  too,  his  "Madrid  Manuscript  of  the  Spanish  Grail 
Fragments,"  XVIII,  147ff.,  (1920),  591ff.,  (1921). 

Lastly,  C.  Michaelis  de  Vasconcellos,  Grober's  Grundriss,  Band  II, 
2te  Abt.,  pp.  214f.  (1894),  seems  to  regard  as  the  first  division  of 
the  Grail  cycle  to  which  the  Portuguese  Demanda  belongs  —  i.  e.  of 
what  we  call  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle  —  the  Portuguese  Estoria  do 
Emperador  Vespasiano  (also  called  Livro  daDestruicdo  de  Jerusalem). 
This  book  exists  both  in  MS.  and  in  an  early  print  (1496).  The 
account  of  the  work  which  she  gives,  however,  does  not  sustain  her 
conjecture. 

7  The  explanation  here  proposed  seems  more  plausible  than  that 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     461 

(Huth-MS.)  which  contains  a  larger  proportion,  perhaps,  of 
the  original  Pseudo-Robert  than  any  other  extant,  the  prose  ren- 
dering of  Robert's  Joseph  has  been  substituted  for  the  original 
Estoire,8  but  from  no  point  of  view  was  the  substitution  justifi- 
able, for  not  only  did  it  destroy  the  artificial  symmetry  in  regard 
to  the  length  of  the  branches,  wrhich,  as  we  shall  see,  had  been 
established  in  the  manuscript  tradition  by  this  time,  but  Robert's 
Joseph  does  not  harmonize  at  all  in  its  narrative  with  a  Galahad- 
Queste,  such  as  constituted  the  Queste  branch  of  the  Pseudo-Ro- 
bert cycle.9 

2.  The  Merlin10  is  the  prose  rendering  of  Robert's  Merlin  — 
the  same  that  was  incorporated  into  the  Vulgate  cycle. 

3.  A  large  part,  although  not  the  whole,  of  the  Merlin-con- 


which  is  implied  in  Wechssler's  Habilitationschrift,  p.  16,  viz.,  that 
the  Estoire  (Livre  del  Graal)  was  too  ascetic  for  the  new  cycle. 
As  is  well  known,  the  Vulgate  Queste  is  much  more  ascetic,  yet  it 
was  recast  for  this  cycle.  Moreover,  Robert's  Joseph,  which  takes 
the  place  of  the  Estoire  in  the  Huth  MS.,  is  likewise  more  purely 
ascetic  than  the   Estoire. 

8  Heinzel  in  his  Grail  treatise  (pp.  167f.)  first  pointed  this  out. 
Allusions  in  the  Queste  division  of  the  cycle  (Spanish  and  Portuguese 
Demandas),  as  he  observed,  are  to  an  Estoire,  not  to  Robert's 
Joseph.  On  this  subject  cp.  also,  Wechssler,  op.  cit.,  pp.  8f.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  the  Estoire  which  the  author  of  these  allusions 
had  in  mind  was  anything  but  the  Vulgate  version  of  that  branch, 
and  1  do  not  believe  that  any  other  ever  existed. 

Besides  the  prose-rendering  of  Robert's  Joseph,  which  did  not 
really  belong  to  the  Pseudo -Robert  cycle,  the  Huth-MS.  contains  only 
Robert's  Merlin  (the  prose  version)  and  the  Jlfer/m-continuation  of 
the  cycle  just  named,  though  incomplete.  According  to  Wechssler, 
the  i¥gr£m-continuation  of  this  MS.  belongs  to  the  hypothetical  form 
of  Pseudo  -  Robert  which  he  calls  "Kiirzung  C",  which,  in  turn, 
rests  on  his  hypothetical  „KurzungB".  The  statement  at  the  end  of 
the  Huth-MS.  II,  254,  that  the  Mer/m-continuation  ends  here  shows 
that  the  scribe  or  redactor  of  the  MS.  purposely  left  out  the  episodes 
preserved  in  MS.  112. 

It  ends   at   the  bottom  of  p.  146  of.  Vol.  I  in   the   edition   of 
the  Huth-Merlin  by  G.  Paris   and  J.  Ulrich   (2  vols.,   Paris,    1886). 


462  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

tinuation  of  the  cycle  is  preserved  in  the  Huth  MS.11  and  in  the 
Spanish  Demands,12  respectively.  An  additional  fragment  is  pre- 
served in  MS.  112  (Bibl.  Nat.)13  and  in  Malory's  Morte  Darthur.1* 

11  Begins  Huth-Merlin,  1,  147  (top  of  page).  For  a  history  and 
description  of  this  MS.,  which  is  now  Add.  38117  of  the  British 
Museum,  see  G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin,  I,  pp.  Iff.,  and  Vettermann, 
pp.  85  ff. 

ia  La  Demanda  del  Sancto  Grial  (Toledo,  1515,  of  which  only 
a  part  is  preserved  —  in  the  British  Museum  copy  —  and  Seville,  1535). 
This  work  (edition  of  1535)  has  been  reprinted  in  the  Nueva  Biblioteca 
de  Autores  Espafioles  bajo  la  direccion  des  Excmo.  Sr.  D.  Marcelino 
Menendez  y  Pelayo,  in  the  volume  entitled  Libros  de  Caballerias, 
Primer  a  Parte,  Ciclo  arturico-ciclo  carolingio,  por  Adolf o  Bonillor 
y  San  Martin,  Madrid,  1907.  In  this  reprint  the  editor  has  given 
an  unauthorized  title,  El  Baladro  del  Sabio  Merlin,  to  the  part  of 
the  book,  pp.  3 — 162,  which  contains  the  Spanish  version  of  the 
Pseudo-Robert  ifeWin-continuation.  The  original  sixteenth  century 
print  which  he  is  editing  designates  it  clearly  at  the  beginning  as 
El  Primero  Libro  de  la  Demanda  del  Sancto  Grial.  Hence  we 
shall  speak  of  this  Book  as  Demanda  I  and  of  the  Second  Bookr 
which  contains  the  Spanish  version  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  Queste  and 
Mort  Arthur,  as  Demanda  II. 

Besides  the  prose-rendering  of  Robert's  Merlin,  Demanda  I 
contains  a  large  part  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  J/ieWin-continuation,  interpolated 
with  fragments  of  prophecies  by  Merlin  and  of  the  lost  Conte  del 
Brait  in  Spanish  dress.  For  a  table  of  the  correspondences  in  detail, 
cp.  Vettermann,  pp.  124f.  Sommer  has  described,  Bomania,  XXXVI, 
369  ff.,  the  early  prints  of  the  Spanish  Demanda  I,  and  ibid.  pp.  383  ff., 
has  compared  it  with  the  Huth-Merlin.  Vettermann's  minute 
comparative  study  of  the  Balen  tale  in  the  two  texts  (pp.  144ff.), 
however,  gives  a  more  exact  idea  of  the  nature  of  their  relations  to 
each  other. 

18  According  to  Wechssler,  Habilitationschrift,  p.  13,  this  fragment 
supplies  the  part  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  ilfeWm-continuation  which  was 
missing  from  the  Huth  MS.  —  consequently  the  two  combined  give  us 
this  continuation  complete,  as  it  stood  in  his  Redaction  B.  Moreover, 
he  has  compared,  pp.  29 ff.,  this  fragment  with  the  very  condensed 
version  of  the  same  incidents  in  Malory,  Book  IV,  ch.  20 — 28.  The 
fragment  has  since  been  published  by  Sommer :  Die  Abenteuer  Gawains, 
Ywains,  und  Le  Mor holts  mit  den  drei  Jungfrauen,  nach  HS.  112: 
Beiheft  47  zur  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  (Halle  a.  S.,  1913). 

14  Book  I  ch.  19—28   and   Books   II,   IH  and  IV.      Sommer, 


The  Psendo- Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     463 

The  divergence  between  the  Vulgate  and  Pseudo-Robert  cycles 
is  greatest  in  their  MerZm-continuations.  From  the  time  of  Chre- 
tien on,  the  predominant  tendency  of  Arthurian  romance  had  been 
to  express  itself  in  forms  of  purely  fanciful  adventure.  But  the 
ilierZw-continuation  of  the  Vulgate,  as  we  have  seen,  was  a  pseudo- 
chronicle,  and  thus  accorded  very  imperfectly  with  the  spirit  of  the 
Lancelot,  which  came  immediately  after  it  in  the  series.  It  oc- 
curred, therefore,  to  the  author  of  the  corresponding  division  of 
the  pseudo-Robert  cycle,15  who,  in  any  event,  was  in  search  of 
novelty,  that  there  was  room  for  a  MerZm-continuation  which  would 
be  more  in  harmony  with  the  ultra-romantic  character  of  the 
[xmcelot,  and  it  was,  doubtless,  to  this  feeling  that  the  new  Merlin- 
continuation  owes  its  existence.  Besides,  the  author  of  the  prose 
Tristan,  with  whose  work  the  author  of  Pseudo-Robert  was  thor- 
oughly familiar,  had  already  set  the  example  of  handling  the 
characters  and  incidents  of  the  Vulgate  with  great  freedom.16 

Like  the  Vulgate  continuation,  the  corresponding  division  of 


in  his  edition  of  Malory,  111,  58 ff.,  compares  Malory  in  detail  with 
the  corresponding  parts  of  the  Huth-Merlin,  throughout.  When  his 
study  was  published  (1891),  it  was  not  known  (cp.  Ill,  145)  that  the 
(approximate)  source  of  Malory,  Book  IV,  ch.  20 — 28,  had  been 
preserved  in  MS.  112. 

16  Was  the  author  of  the  ^r/m-continuation,  also,  the  author 
of  the  Queste  of  this  cycle?  G.  Paris,  Introduction  to  the  Huth-Merlin, 
p.  LXII,  thought  not,  but  this  idea  was  connected  with  his  theory  of 
the  development  of  the  prose  cycles,  which,  as  I  have  tried  to  prove 
below,  Part  IV,  was  unsound.  We  know  that  the  Pseudo  -  Robert 
Merlin  is  merely  the  old  prose  version  of  Robert's  Merlin,  adopted 
without  change  —  moreover,  that  the  Pseudo-Robert  Mort  Arthur, 
save  in  omissions,  does  not  differ  greatly  from  the  Vulgate.  Now,  if, 
as  I  surmise,  no  substantially  new  Estoire  (Grand  St.  Graal)  or 
Lancelot  was  composed  for  this  cycle,  one  man  could  easily  have 
rewritten  the  remaining  parts-viz.  the  J/er/m-continuation  and  the  Queste. 

16  It  is  possible,  too,  that  the  il/er/m-continuation  of  the  Vulgate, 
being  a  comparatively  late  composition,  did  not  possess  as  yet  the 
authority  of  the  other  branches  of  that  cycle.  Nevertheless,  as  a  part 
of  the  great  Vulgate  cycle,  it  was  able  to  maintain  itself  against  the 
other  il/erftn-continuations  —  viz.  those  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle 
and  MS.  337  —  though  it  is  hardly  superior  to  either  in  literary  value. 


464  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Pseudo-Robert  was  planned  to  fill  out  the  gap  between  the  coro- 
nation of  Arthur,  with  which  Robert  de  Boron's  Merlin  had  ter- 
minated, and  the  appearance  of  Lancelot  on  the  stage.  Merlin, 
however,  is  even  more  prominent  in  the  narrative  of  Pseudo-Robert 
than  in  that  of  the  Vulgate,  so  that  the  former  is  somewhat  more 
closely  connected  with  Robert's  Merlin  than  the  latter.  On  the 
other  hand,  references  in  it  to  the  Lancelot,  though  fairly  numer- 
ous, are  less  so  than  in  the  case  of  the  Vulgate. 

We  shall  not  invite  the  reader  to  follow  us  through  the  laby- 
rinth of  fantastic  adventures  which  make  up  the  Pseudo-Robert 
Merlin  continuation.17  They  are  of  the  same  general  kind  as  the 
adventures  of  the  Lancelot,  by  which  they  were  manifestly  in- 
spired. The  earlier  portion  of  the  work,  in  which  Arthur,  Merlin, 
Loth,  Pellinor  (Perceval's  father,  according  to  this  romance)  and 
Balaain  are  the  principal  characters,  is  the  best;  the  incidents 
of  the  later  portion,  such  as  the  adventures  of  Accalon,  Yvain, 
Gawain,  and  Le  Morhout,  though,  also,  related  with  ease  and 
fluency,  are  of  less  significance.18  It  is  characteristic  of  the  author 
that  he  should  begin  his  continuation19  with  the  most  sensational, 
perhaps,  of  all  the  motifs  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  Vulgate, 
namely,  the  story  of  Mordred's  incestuous  birth.  With  this  he 
has  combined  in  a  modified  form  the  biblical  motif  of  Herod'g 
slaughter  of  the  innocent  children;  for,  warned  by  Merlin's  pro- 
phecy that  a  child  who  is  to  be  born  on  the  next  May-day  will 
be  the  cause  of  the  undoing  of  Arthur  and  his  kingdom,20  the 
king  has  all  the  children  in  his  dominions  who  are  born  at  that 
time  set  afloat  in  a  pilot-less  vessel.21 

17  There  is  a  good  analysis  of  it  in  its  Huth  MS.  form  in  the 
edition  of  the  Huth-Merlin,   by   Gr.  Paris  and  J.  Ulrich,  II,   285  ff. 

18  It  was  in  this  part  of  Pseudo-Robert  (Sommer's  Beiheft  47, 
pp.  25 ff.),  however,  that  we  first  find  the  story  which  Tennyson  has 
made  familiar  under  the  name  of  Pelleas  and  Ettarre,  his  source, 
of  course,  being  Malory  IV,  22 — 24.  Malory,  however,  uses  an  altered 
version  of  Pseudo-Robert,  which  ends  differently.  Arcade  is  the 
original  form  of  the  heroine's  name,  Pellias  of  the  hero's.  The  latter 
name  is  doubtless  a  corruption  of  Pellean(s). 

19  Huth-Merlin,  I,  147ff.  so  Ibid.  I,  158ff. 
81  I,  207  ff. 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     465 

This  vessel,  however,  was  not  destroyed,  as  Arthur  intended, 
but  drifts  to  the  castle  of  Amalvi  in  the  land  of  King  Oriant 
(father  of  Le  Lait  Hardi),  and  the  children  are  saved.  But  al- 
ready in  the  assembling  of  the  children,  Mordred,  the  fatal  infant 
of  Merlin's  prophecy  —  the  fruit  of  Arthur's  own  unwitting  in- 
cest with  his  sister  —  had  escaped  the  king's  net;  for  the  ship 
which  was  bearing  him  to  Camelot  was  wrecked  and  all  on  board 
perished,  save  the  child,  who  was  picked  up  on  the  seashore  by 
a  fisherman   and   later  adopted   by   the   father  of   Sagremor.22 

Just  after  the  account  of  Mordred's  conception,  comes  what 
is  perhaps  the  most  extravagant  of  all  Arthurian  fancies  —  na- 
mely, that  of  la  beste  glatissante  (the  barking  beast)23  —  borrowed 
from  the  prose  Tristan.24'  The  hideous  creature,  which  has  a  whole 
cry  of  dogs  in  its  belly,  has  been  pursued  in  vain  by  Pellinor  for 
a  year.25  The  achievement  of  this  quest,  however,  is  to  be  one 
of  the  Grail  adventures,  and,  as  Merlin  informs  Arthur,26  none 
but  the  virgin  knight,  Perceval  (Pellinor's  son),  will  be  able  to 
tell  the  king  the  true  story  of  the  strange  beast. 

We  have,  still  further,  in  the  romance  many  other  folktale 
motifs  —  armor  that  renders  invisible,27  lances  thrust  by  invisible 
hands,28  blood-baths  to  cure  leprosy,29  etc.  A  precious  piece  of 
mediaevalism,   especially,   is   the  story30  as   to   how  the  goddess, 


I,  204 ff.  The  story  of  the  infant  Mordred  is  due  to  conta- 
mination with  the  legend  of  Pope  Gregory.  Cp.  Bruce's  edition  of 
the  Historia  Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii,  pp.  XXXVIIff.  (1913). 

23  I,  149 f. 

Loseth,  pp.  55  ff.  According  to  certain  Tristan  MSS.  (cp. 
Loseth,  pp.  57ff.)  the  beast  has  a  stag's  feet,  the  thighs  and  tail 
of  a  lion,  a  leopard's  body  and  a  serpent's  head,  and  its  cry  was 
equal  to  that  of  a  hundred  dogs.  In  the  Huth-Merlin  I,  149,  160, 
et  passim,  the  term  applied  to  the  creature  is  "diverse".  In  Malory, 
chapter-headings  to  ch.  19  and  20  of  Book  I,  it  is  called  "the  questing 
beest,"  and  at  the  end  of  ch.  19  this  writer  says  that  Pellinor  first,  and, 
after  Pellinor's  death,  Palamedes  pursued  it.  This  fabulous  monster 
figures  also  in  Herbert's  continuation  of  Chretien's  Perceval,  Potvin  VI, 
219ff.,  and  in  the  Perlesvaus,  pp.  187  ft, 

2>  I,  151.  26  I,  160.  t1  II,  24.  *8  II,  9. 

89  II,  16f.  80  II,  145ff.  8I  I,  195ff 


466  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

Diana,  having  found  a  new  lover,  gets  rid  of  the  old  one  (Faunus) 
by  enticing  him  into  a  sarcophagus,  on  the  plea  of  giving  him 
a  medicinal  bath,  and  then  filling  it  with  boiling  lead.  As  a 
complement  to  the  famous  incident  in  the  Vulgate  Mort  Artu  of 
Gifflet's  casting  Excalibur  into  the  lake,  at  the  wounded  monarch's 
behest,  our  author  describes,31  from  his  own  invention,  how  Arthur, 
in  the  first  instance,  received  the  sword  from  this  same  lake  — 
only  by  a  cheap  effort  at  originality  he  imputes  to  the  scabbard 
the  supernatural  excellence  that  had  traditionally  belonged  to  the 
weapon,  itself. 

Much   the   most  felicitous  episode  of  the   present  romance, 
however,  is  that  of  Balaain  and  Balaan32  —  the  two  brothers  who. 

32  II,  47  ff.  Already  from  I,  215  (where  he  acquired  an  additional 
sword  that  Arthur  and  his  knights  had  failed  to  loose  from  the  waist 
of  a  damsel  of  the  Lady  of  Avalon)  on,  Balaain  had  played  a  prominent 
part  in  the  romance  as  "le  chevalier  as  deus  espees"  (I,  233  et 
passim)  —  a  title  which  he  owes  most  likely  to  the  Lancelot,  IV, 
323  ff.,  where  this  is  the  epithet  of  Eliezer  (Galahad's  maternal  uncle), 
although  we  find  it  applied  to  other  knights  elsewhere  in  Arthurian 
romance,  e.  g.  in  the  prose  Tristan  (Lbseth),  pp.  21  ff.,  to  Palamedes^ 
p.  395,  to  Samaliel,  in  the  metrical  romance  Chevalier  as  deus  Espees 
to  Meriadeuc.  Cp.,  besides,  Heinzel's  Grail  treatise,  p.  17  (including 
note).  Above  all,  it  was  he  who  had  given  King  Pellehan  of  the 
Grail  castle  the  dolorous  stroke  (II,  27 f.  —  wanting  in  the  Huth  MS., 
but  supplied  by  the  editors  from  Malory,  Book  II,  ch.  15 — 16)  with 
the  marvellous  lance,  whereby  a  magical  blight  descended  upon  the 
kingdom  of  Listinois  (II,  30)  or  Logres  (II,  7),  so  that  it  was  henceforth 
designated  k'li  roiames  de  terra  gastee  et  li  roiames  de  terre  forainne." 
It  was  this  disastrous  stroke  that  sealed  Balaam's  own  fate  (II,  7f.). 
In  PMLA,  XXV,  42ff.  (1910),  A.  C.  L.  Brown  has  tried  to  establish 
a  Celtic  origin  for  this  episode,  by  citing  supposed  Irish  parallels  to  it. 
For  a  refutation  of  his  argument,  however,  cp.  Brugger,  Zs.f.  frz. 
Spr.  u.  Litt,  XXXVI2,  190  (1910)  and,  especially,  Vetterman, 
pp.  290 ff.  (1918).  Gallan,  Garlan  (name  of  Balaams  adversary), 
which  Brown  (p.  43,  note  8)  identifies  with  Weland  (name  of  the 
famous  smith  of  Germanic  legend),  is,  of  course,  simply  a  corrupt 
form  of  Varlan  (Brulant  etc.)  of  the  Vulgate  Estoirey  I,  290. 
Balaan 's  name  was,  doubtless,  taken  from  that  of  the  British  nobleman 
who  was  converted  to  Christianity  by  Pharain  in  the  Vulgate  Estoire, 
I,  268.     That  personage  was   named  Balaan  (Balan),  and,  like  the 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     467 

not  recognizing  each  other,  engaged  in  a  combat  that  proved  fatal 
to  both.    Only  after  both  had  suffered  mortal  wounds,  did  mutual 
recognition  take  place.    The  incident,  of  course,  was  not  new,  but 
a  variant  of  a  folk- tale  motif  of  immemorial  antiquity,  best  known 
in  its  Persian  form  of  Sohrab  and  Rustem.     The  episode,  how- 
ever, had  the  good  fortune  to  belong  to  the  part  of  the  Pseudo- 
Robert  MerZm-continuation  whioh  Malory  adopted  for  his  Morte 
Darthur,  and  it  was  in  the  latter  place33  that  it  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  two  of  the  greatest  English  poets  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury —  Tennyson  and  Swinburne.    Both,  accordingly,  clothed  the 
old  story  in  new  poetical  forms.34     In  neither  case,  to  be  sure, 
does  the  result  represent  the  best  art  of  the  author. 

hero  of  the  present  episode,  was  from  North  Britain.  The  name  was 
very  probably  chosen  by  our  author  for  his  hero,  because  in  sound  it 
was  similar  to  that  of  the  old  deliverer  of  the  dolorous  stroke 
—  Varlan  (Brulant  etc.)  in  the  Estoire,  I,  290,  the  heathen  king 
whom  he  wishes  to  supplant.  Vetterman,  pp.  196ff.,  has  discussed  at 
length  possible  original  Celtic  connections  of  the  name  —  e.  g.,  with 
Belinos,  a  Celtic  god,  with  Belinus,  a  British  prince  in  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth's  History,  Book  III,  ch.  1  — 10,  who,  for  a  time  carried  on 
a  feud  with  his  brother,  Brennius,  etc.  Only  Geoffrey  (or  his  trans- 
lator, Wace),  however,  really  need  be  taken  into  consideration,  and 
even  this  connection  is  doubtful;  for  one  can  point  easily  to  parallels 
in  Arthurian  romance  for  every  individual  element  in  Balaam's  story, 
and  the  combination  of  these  elements  was,  of  course,  our  romancer's 
work.  The  name  of  the  British  nobleman  which  I  mentioned  above, 
as  furnishing  the  true  source  of  the  name  of  the  hero  of  the  present 
episode,  occurs  only  once  in  the  Estoire,  and  the  names  of  persons 
and  places  in  MSS»  of  the  mediaeval  romances  were  so  subject  to 
mutilation  that  no  one  can  possibly  affirm  that  the  form,  Balaan 
(Balan)}  which  we  find  in  this  single  passage,  is  not,  itself,  merely 
a  scribal  corruption.  Consequently,  all  discussion  of  its  origin  is, 
from  the  start,  pretty  well  doomed  to  futility. 

The  name  of  the  hero's  brother,  Balaam,  is,  of  course,  merely 
an  intentional  variant  of  Balaan.  In  a  similar  manner,  we  have 
Huth-Merlin  I,  120,  two  sisters  made  out  of  Morgan  le  Fay.  Upon 
one  of  them  is  conferred  the  nominative  form  of  that  enchantress's 
name,  viz.  Morgue(s),  upon  the  other  the  objective  form,  Morgain. 
'  Malory,  II,  18—19. 
Tennyson's  Balin  and  Balan  (1885),  Swinburne's  The  Tale 
of  Balen  (1896). 


34 


468  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

4.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  a  re-cast  Lancelot  ever 
formed  a  part  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle.35  This  cycle  presupposes 
merely  the  Vulgate  form  of  that  branch. 


36  To  be  sure,  Wechssler,  Habilitationschrift,  pp.  18ff.  and  Brugger, 
Zs.f.frz.  Spr,  u.  LitL,  XXXIV1,  109 ff.,  express  the  contrary  opinion, 
and,  as  has  been  said  above,  (p.  447,  note  12),  accept  as  fragments  of  a  lost 
Pseudo-Robert  Lancelot  certain  episodes  that  are  found  in  some  MSS. 
of  the  prose  Tristan:  1.  the  episodes  relating  to  Galahad's  birth  and 
upbringing  which  Sommer  has  edited  (along  with  their  prose  Tristan 
setting)  from  the  early  fourteenth  century  MS.  Add.  5474  (British 
Museum),  under  the  title  of  "Galahad  and  Perceval".  MPh.,  V,  55ff., 
181ff.  (1907),  291ff.  (1908).  2.  the  tourney  at  Louvezerp  (analyzed 
by  Loseth,  pp.  271  ff.).  No.  1  forms,  also,  the  approximate  original 
of  Malory's  Books  XI  and  XII.  It  is  closely  dependent  on  the  cor- 
responding part  of  the  Vulgate. 

Brugger,  op.  cit.,  p.  109,  note  13,  has  suggested  that  an  inter- 
polation in  the  Tristan  MS.  12599  (B.  N.)  —  end  of  thirteenth 
century  —  is  also  drawn  from  the  hypothetical  Pseudo-Robert.  Cp. 
Loseth,  pp.  206 ff.,  for  this  interpolation.  The  sweeping  inference, 
however,  which  the  above-named  scholars  have  drawn  from  these 
episodes  —  viz.  that  Pseudo-Robert  originally  comprised  a  Lancelot  — 
is  obviously  unjustified  and  has  already  been  rejected  by  Sommer,  the 
discoverer  of  the  main  one  (No.  1).  See  Beiheft  47,  pp.  XIX f.  For 
a  refutation  of  this  view,  cp.  p.  447  note  12,  above.  Besides,  there  are  no 
allusions  in  that  cycle  that  require  such  a  supposition,  and  it  is  evident 
from  the  words  of  the  Huth-Merlin  II,  57,  although  they  are  probably  due 
to  a  redactor  and  not  to  the  original  author,  that  the  unexampled 
length  of  the  Lancelot  prevented  the  rewriting  of  that  branch.  There 
it  is  said;  "et  eel  anelet  li  [=  Lancelot]  avoit  doune  la  damoisele 
del  lac,  si  coume  la  grant  hystore  de  Lancelot  le  devise  |cp.  Sommer, 
III,  123 j,  cele  meisme  ystoire  qui  doit  estre  departie  de  mon  livre,  ne 
mie  pour  chou  qu  il  [error  for  qu'ele]  n'i  apartiegne  et  que  elle  n'en 
soit  traite,  mais  pour  chou  qu'il  convient  que  les  trois  parties  de  mon 
livre  soient  ingaus,  l'une  aussi  grant  coume  l'autre,  et  se  je  ajoustaisse 
cele  grant  ystore,  la  moijene]  partie  de  mon  livre  fust  au  tresble  plus 
grant  que  les  autres  deus.  Pour  chou  me  couvient  il  laissier  celle 
grant  ystoire  qui  devise  les  oevres  de  Lancelot  et  la  naissance  |  Gala- 
had] et  voel  deviser  les  neuf  lignies  des  nascions  [error  for  de  Nascien, 
Cp.  Sommer  I,  203],  tout  ensi  coume  il  apartient  a  la  haute  escriture 
del  saint  graal,  ne  n'i  conterai  ja  chose  que  je  ne  doie,  ains  dirai 
mains  asses  que  je  ne  truis  escrit  en  l'ystoire  dou  latin." 

(G.  Paris.  Iluth-M.,  p.  LIV,  suggested  the  necessary  emendations, 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     469 

5.  Only  fragments  of  the  Queste  of  the  present  cycle  in  the 
original  French  have  come  down  to  us.36  The  whole  branch,  how- 
ever, has  been  preserved  in  a  pretty  close  translation  in  the  Portu- 
guese Demanda31  and,  much  more  condensed,  in  the  Spanish  De- 

which  I  have  inserted  in  brackets  in  this  quotation.  —  Furthermore, 
the  pretence  here  that  the  cycle  was  translated  from  the  Latin  is  simply 
the  common  fiction  of  mediaeval  romancers,  and,  in  this  case,  is  borrowed 
from  the  Vulgate.  —  Note,  too,  that,  when  the  author  of  the  passage 
speaks  of  the  Lancelot  as  being  drawn  from  "mon  livre,"  lie  merely 
refers  to  the  fact  that  the  Lancelot  is  the  natural  immediate  sequel 
of  the  .Mer/in-continuation  in  the  series.) 

Finally,  with  regard  to  the  question  at  issue  —  it  is  impossible 
to  maintain  that  an  author  or  redactor  could  not  interpolate  or  recast 
individual  episodes  in  any  one  branch  of  a  cycle,  unless  he  was  re- 
dacting the  whole  cycle.  We  know  positively  that  arbitrary  variants 
of  episodes  in  the  Lancelot,  ranging  from  a  few  lines  up  to  204  quarto 
pages  (cp.  pp.  443  ff.,  above),  were  composed,  without  any  thought  on  the 
part  of  their  authors  of  recasting  the  whole  cycle.  Now,  similar 
variants  to  the  Lancelot,  doubtless,  continued  to  be  written  after 
Pseudo-Robert  was  composed,  in  which  case  they  might  well  show  the 
influence  of  the  new  cycle.  Then,  too,  it  is  quite  possible  that  inter- 
polators of  the  Tristan  MSS.  may  have,  themselves,  composed  such 
episodes  under  the  influence  of  this  same  cycle. 

36  Namely,  1.  in  MS.  343  (Bibl.  Nat.)  fols.  61a— 104,  col.  d. 
For  this  MS.,  cp.,  especially,  Sommer,  Romania,  XXXVI,  563,  note  1, 
and  extracts  from  it,  ibid.  pp.  570,  573ff.  —  likewise,  ibid.,  591  ff., 
A.  Pauphilet's  article,  "La  Queste  du  Saint  Graal  du  MS.  Bibl.  Nat. 
Fr.  343."  2.  in  MS.  112  (Bibl.  Nat.)  fols.  84d— 128b,  146d— 152c, 
179  d — 180c.  Cp.  Wechssler's  Habilitationschrift,  p.  55.  3.  in  certain 
MSS.  of  the  prose  Tristan  (version  commune).  Cp.  Lbseth,  Preface, 
Sections  VI  and  IX. 

37  Preserved  in  the  unique  fifteenth  century  MS.  2594  of  what 
was  formerly  the  Imperial  Library  at  Vienna.  Karl  von  Reinhardt- 
stoettner  edited  about  one  fourth  of  it  (Cp.  Wechssler,  p.  13,  note  2), 
under  the  title:  A  Historia  dos  Cavalleiros  da  Mesa  Redonda  e  da 
Demanda  do  Santo  Graall  (Berlin,  1887).  The  remainder  is  still 
(March,  1921)  unedited,  although  an  edition  of  the  complete  text  by 
E.  Wechssler  and  A.  Klein  has  figured  now  for  some  years  in  the  list 
of  prospective  publications  of  the  Gesellschaft  fur  Romanische  Literatur 
(Dresden).  At  present  the  best  information  available  concerning  the 
contents  of  the  unpublished  portion  of  the  Portuguese  Demanda  is  to 
be  found  in  Romania,  XXXVI,  543 ff.  (1907),    where  Sommer   gives 


470  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

rnanda.™ 

The  rambling  and  fantastic  adventures  of  the  Lancelot,  as 
we  have  seen  above,39  embodied  the  ideal  of  romance  for  the  author 
of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle,  and  it  was  this  fact  that  prompted 
him  to  substitute  his  new  MerZm-continuation  for  that  of  the 
Vulgate.  Inasmuch  as  the  latter  was  a  mediocre  composition  and  the 
new  continuation  was  superior  to  it  in  fluency  and  liveliness  of 
style,  there  was,  in  some  respects,  a  profit  to  the  reader  in  the  sub- 
stitution. It  was  a  different  matter,  however,  when,  under  the 
influence  of  this  ideal  the  same  writer  undertook  to  transform  a 
work  of  high  seriousness  and,  despite  all  drawbacks,  of  unmistak- 
able power,  like  the  Queste,  into  a  romance  of  commonplace  ad- 
venture. It  betrays  the  shallowness  of  the  author's  own  nature 
that  he  should  have  ever  conceived  of  such  an  enterprise.  The 
result  is  the  debased  version  of  this  branch  which  we  have  in  the 
above-mentioned  forms.40 


us  the  results  of  his  systematic  comparison  of  this  text  with  the  Spanish 
Demanda  (pp.  163ff.,  of  Bonilla's  edition)  and  the  Vulgate.  In  general, 
the  Portuguese  text  represents  the  original  French  more  fully  and  ac- 
curately than  the  Spanish  does,  but  the  latter  preserves  some  passages 
omitted  in  the  former.  It  has  not  yet  been  determined  whether  the 
two  translations  were  derived  independently  from  the  French. 

That  the  Portuguese  Demanda  represents  the  Pseudo-Robert 
Queste  is  indisputable,  although  Heinzel,  p.  164,  has  pointed  out  some 
matters  in  which  it  contradicts  the  ilfer/m-continuation  of  that  cycle. 
(Huth- Merlin.)  Pauphilet,  pp.  594 f.  —  very  properly,  no  doubt  — 
lays  such  inconsistencies  to  the  account  of  the  literary  activities  of 
the  scribes.  Not  infrequently,  however,  in  such  cases  in  mediaeval 
romance  the  author  is,  himself,  to  blame. 

88  See  p.  462,  note  12,  above.  Either  because  of  injudicious 
condensation  or  because  the  translator  had  before  him  a  defective  MS. 
of  the  original,  there  are  serious  omissions  in  both  the  Queste  and  Mort 
Arthur  of  the  Spanish  Demanda  —  so  serious,  indeed,  as  to  obscure 
some  times  the  real  meaning  of  the  narrative.  For  the  former  cp., 
for  example,  Sommer,  Romania,  XXXVI,  557 f.,  563  and  for  the  latter, 
Bruce.  RR,  IV,  429 f. 

39  Cp.  p.  463. 

40  For  an  excellent  criticism  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  Queste,  cp. 
A.  Pauphilet,  Romania,  XXXVI,  598 ff. 


The  Pseudo-Robert  cle  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     471 

In  this  redaction  of  the  Queste,  indeed,  except  for  the  be- 
ginning and  the  latter  part  of  the  story,  where  the  author  fol- 
lows,  in  the  main,  his  original,  the  Vulgate  Queste  —  in  the 
episodes   of  Galahad's  arrival  at  court41  and   occupation  of  the 
Perilous  Seat,  of  his  obtaining  his  sword  and  shield  for  the  Grail 
quest,  and,  again,  near  the  end,  in  the  mystical  healing  of  Pellan,42 
the  banquet  in  the  Perilous  Palace,  and  the  other  incidents  that 
mark  the  conclusion  of  that  quest  —  the  Grail  theme  disappears 
almost  entirely  from  view,  and  Galahad,  as  already  in  the  prose 
Tristan,  differs  from  the  other  knights  merely  in  being  the  hardest 
hitter  of  them  all.  Only  once  or  twice  in  the  intervening  narrative 
are  we  reminded  of  the  Grail  and  the  Grail  castle,  and,  even  in 
these  instances,  the  "Spiritual  Palace"  of  the  Vulgate  has  lost 
all  genuine  title  to  its  name;  as,  for  instance,  when  Galahad  arrives 
there,   as  he  might  arrive  at  any   other  hospitable  abode,  and, 
after  a  brief  entertainment  by  his  grandfather,  Pelles,  passes  on.43 
Lancelot's  visit,  to  be  sure,  is  more  elaborately  described,44  but 
it,  too,  lacks  the  solemnity  of  the  Vulgate  Queste.   The  romancer 
has  still  further  cheapened  the  conception  of  the  Grail  and  its 
castle  by  establishing  in  the  latter  a  sorcerer  —  whose  power, 
however,  is  in  abeyance,  as  long  as  Galahad  is  present.45   For  the 
rest,  the  episodes  with  which  he  has  made  up  the  bulk  of  the  work 
are  of  the  same  type  as  the  most  threadbare  and  extravagant  ones 
that  we  encounter  in  the  Lancelot  —  quests,  combats,  rapes,  etc. 
For  the  sake  of  novelty, 'and  with  the  example  of  the  prose  Tristan, 


41  Portuguese  Demanda,  pp.  10ff.,  Spanish,  pp.  168ff. 

42  Printed  by  Sommer  from  MS.  343,  in  its  original  French  form 
in  Romania,  XXXVI,  573ff.  For  the  remainder  of  the  text  see 
Sommer 's  analysis  ibid.,  pp.  579ff. 

43  Cp.  Spanish  Demanda,  pp.  238 f.  It  is  true  that  he  does  not 
enter  the  castle  itself  at  this  time. 

44  Cp.  op.  cit.,  pp.  280  ff. 

4,1  Op.  cit,  238f.,  290ff.  The  sorcerer,  called  Atanabos  in 
the  Spanish  text  and  Thanabus  in  MS.  343  (cp.  Romania,  XXXVI, 
604),  is,  of  course,  the  Nectanabus  of  the  Alexander  legend.  The  in- 
cident is,  doubtless,  borrowed  from  the  similar  one  in  the  prose  Tristan, 
p.  356. 


472  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

doubtless,  also,  in  mind,  he  adds  to  the  Grail  questers  Arthurian 
knights  who  had  never  figured  in  that  role  before,  e.  g.  Erec46 
and  Meraugis  de  Portlesguez.47  Above  all,  he  introduces  Tristan 
betimes 48  into  the  company  of  the  Grail  questers,  —  Tristan  whose 
life  was  inseparable  from  his  illicit  amours  —  and,  somewhat  later, 
other  characters  of  the  prose  Tristan  —  Marc49  (Mark)  and  Pala- 
medes.50  The  latter  —  at  first,  a  pagan,  but  afterwards  baptized 
—  has  succeeded  Peliinor  as  the  pursuer  of  the  barking  (or  quest- 
ing) beast.51 

The  profoundly  religious  spirit  of  the  Vulgate  Queste,  we 
observe,  then,  has  vanished  from  this  imitation,  and  we  find  our- 
selves confronted  with  what  is  essentially  a  romance  of  secular 
adventure.  The  inferiority  of  the  new  production  is  mitigated  only 
by  the  author's  gusto  in  his  own  work  and  by  a  certain  vivacity 
which  results  therefrom. 

6.  For  reasons  which  will  be  stated  later  on,  the  Mort  Arthur 
of  this  cycle  was  hardly  treated  as  a  separate  branch,  but  rather 
as  a  mere  epilogue  to  the  Queste.  Only  a  fragment  of  it  is  preserved 
in  the  original  French  —  viz.,  in  MS.  340  (Bibl.  Nat.).52 

The  Portuguese53  and  Spanish54  Demandas,  however,  contain 
it  virtually  entire  in  translation. 


46  Portuguese   Demanda,    pp.  9ffr,    Spanish,  167f.,  210ff.,  228. 

47  Spanish  Demanda,  pp.  2 1 0  f f . 

48  I  bid. }  p.  168.  This  had  already  been  done  in  the  prose  Tristan. 

49  Ibid.,  p.  248. 

50  Ibid.,  pp.  296  ff.  (where  he  is  killed  by  Lancelot),  p.  301  (where 
he,  not  Peliinor  —  as  in  the  Huth-Merlin  —  is  said  to  have  slain  the 
bestia  ladradora  or  beste  glatissante). 

Cp.  previous  note  and  the  Portuguese  Demanda,  pp.  83 f.,  86 f. 

r>2  Cp.  Losetb,  p.  409. 

68  In  his  "Dois  episodios  da  Demanda  do  Santo  Graal,"  Rivista 
Lusitana,  VI,  332  ff.  (1910),  Otto  Klob  has  printed  a  small  portion 
of  the  Portuguese  Mort  Arthur  (corresponding  to  the  Spanish  Demanda 
ch.  421  —  437),  beginning  with  Arthur's  victory  over  the  Romans. 
Otherwise,  the  text  still  remains  unpublished.  For  a  collation  with  the 
Spanish  see  Somnier,  Romania,  XXXVI,  584 ff.  (1907). 

54  This  text  is  printed  in  Bonilla's  edition  of  the  Spanish  Demanda, 
pp.  313ff.    It  begins  in  the  middle  of  ch.  391  of  that  work  with  the 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     473 

As  compared  with  its  original,  the  Vulgate,  this  version  shows 
great  condensation,  but  otherwise  no  striking  differences,  save  at 
the  end.  At  this  point,  however,  we  have  a  curious  addition  — 
evidently  written  under  the  influence  of  the  prose  Tristan  —  as 
follows:55 

After  Lancelot  has  been  buried  and  Bohort  has  settled  in 
the  hermitage  (where  Lancelot  had  ended  his  days)  along  with 
the  archbishop  and  Blioberis,  Meraugis  de  Portlesgeuz  joins  them 
there.     By  this  time  Tristan  and  Iseult  had  been  dead  for  some 
years  and  Marc  is  very  old.    Nevertheless,  having  heard  of  Lance- 
lot's death,  he  hopes  to  conquer  Logres.    Accordingly,  he  invades 
it,  lays  everything  waste,  including  Joyous  Gard56  and  Lancelot's 
tomb,  and  burns  the  bones  of  Lancelot  and  Galehaut.    He,  also, 
destroys  most  of  Camelot  and  with  it  the  Round  Table.    Next 
he  goes  to  the  hermitage  in  order  to  kill  the  four  companions  there. 
He  does  kill  the  archbishop,  but  is,  himself,  killed  by  Paulart, 
a  knight  of  Ban's  lineage.   Marc's  men  dare  not  put  his  body  in 
consecrated  ground,  so  they  inter  him  before  the  hermitage.    Few 
of  them,  in  fact,  knew  how  he  had  died. 

There  is  something  terrible  about  this  conception  of  the  end 
of  the  glory  of  Arthur  and  his  knights.  It  is  as  if  a  beast  were 
trampling  under  foot  some  of  the  fairest  creations  of  the  human 
imagination. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle,  from  its  in- 


words:  "Dize  el  cuento  que  un  dia  se  apartaron  los.  v.  hermanos  en 
una  camara  del  rey"  (Bruce's  edition  of  the  Mort  Artu,  p.  92  1.  13, 
Sommer's,  VI,  269,  1.  15).  Agravain  is  about  to  stir  up  Arthur  against 
Lancelot  a  second  time  on  account  of  the  latter's  intrigue  with  the 
queen.  In  the  Spanish  text  the  beginning  of  the  Mort  Arthur  is  not 
indicated  by  a  new  chapter  to  show  that  a  new  division  of  the  story 
has  commenced.  For  a  detailed  comparison  of  the  Spanish  with  the 
French  original,  cp.  Bruce,  RR,  IV,   429 ff. 

I  follow  here  Lbseth's  analysis  (p.  409)  of  this  conclusion  as 
it  is  preserved  in  the  original  French  in  MS.  340.  The  Spanish  version 
shows  some  insignificant  differences.     Cp.  Bruce,  loc.  cit. 

66  Already    in  Arthur's   life-time,    Spanish   Demanda,   pp.  248 ff. 
(Queste  section),  Marc  had  invaded  Logres  and  ravaged  Joyous  Gard. 


474  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

ception.  was  cast  in  the  form  of  a  trilogy,57  yet  in  all  the  extant 


57  This  is  explicitly  stated  in  the  Huth-Merlin,  I,  280  and  II, 
287,  with  reference  to  the  form  of  the  cycle  which  that  MS.  represents. 

The  Portuguese  Demanda,  likewise,  refers  more  than  once  to  the 
tripartite  division.  Cp.  Heinzel,  pp.  163f.  and  Sommer,  Romania,  XXXVI, 
570.  So,  too,  the  fragment  of  the  original  French  text  preserved  in 
MS.  343.     Cp.  Wechssler,  p.  60. 

The  passages  in  the  Huth-Merlin  were,  of  course,  observed  by 
G.  Paris,  when  he  edited  that  text,  and  on  the  basis  of  the  indications 
which  they  contained  he  pointed  out  (Introduction,  p.  LXI)  that  the 
third  member  of  the  trilogy,  which  at  that  time  was  not  known  to 
exist,  must  have  embraced  not  merely  a  Queste,  but  a  Mort  Arthur 
with  Tristan  contaminations.  The  publication  of  a  part  of  the  Portu- 
guese Demanda  by  von  Reinhardstoettner  in  the  following- year  (1887) 
confirmed  Paris's  conjecture  and  he  himself  fully  recognized  this  fact 
in  his  review  of  the  work  just  named,  Romania,  XVI,  582 ff.  (1887). 
There  followed,  however,  much  discussion  as  to  the  original  form  of 
the  trilogy  and  how  its  individual  members  were  constituted.  First, 
Heinzel,  Grail  treatise,  pp.  162  ff.  (1892),  proved  that  in  its  original 
form  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle  began  with  an  Estoire  (Grand 
St.  Graal),  not  a  Joseph.  Moreover,  he  surmised  —  erroneously,  no 
doubt,  —  that  it  contained  the  Conte  del  Brait,  besides  all  the  branches 
represented  in  the  Vulgate.  Next  came  Wechssler  with  his  Habilitation- 
schrift  (1895)  in  which  he  regards  Pseudo -Robert  as  made  up  originally 
of  six  branches,  like  the  Vulgate  (counting  the  prose  Merlin  and  its 
continuation  as  separate).  He  tries  to  prove,  however,  that  subsequently 
the  cycle  underwent  two  successive  redactions  in  each  of  which  it  was 
shortened.  These  redactions  —  both  cast  in  the  form  of  trilogies  — 
he  calls  respectively  "Kiirzung  B"  and  "Kiirzung  C".  In  the  first 
the  Lancelot,  according  to  his  theory,  was  left  out,  in  the  latter  the 
Estoire,  also.  The  Huth-Merlin.  according  to  Wechssler,  represents 
the  Merlin  continuation  of  both  these  redactions  —  except  that  it  omits 
the  episodes  at  the  end  (preserved  in  MS.  112),  which  belonged  to 
Redaction  B  —  and  the  Portuguese  Demanda  the  Queste -Mort 
Arthur  (last  third)  of  B.  If  the  Queste -Mort  Arthur  of  C  was  ever 
actually  written,  as  Wechssler,  p.  9,  supposes,  this  division  must  have 
been  condensed  to  half  its  original  bulk,  for,  being  the  last  third  of 
the  trilogy,  it  could  only  have  had  one  half  the  length  of  the  first 
two  thirds  (Merlin  continuation  of  the  Huth  MS.)  and  that  would  have 
been  only  one  half  the  length  of  the  last  third  of  B  (the  Portuguese 
Demanda).  There  is  no  extant  text,  however,  even  of  a  fragmentary 
kind,  that  corresponds  to  this  description,  and  we  are,  therefore,  com- 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     475 

fragments  of  the  cycle,  such  is  assumed  to  be  its  structure.  Now, 
in  endeavoring  to  account  for  this  particular  form  which  the  work 
eventually  received  in  the  manuscript  tradition,  it  is  to  be  ob- 
served, first  of  all,  that  its  author  plainly  designed  to  make  the 
new  cycle  shorter  than  the  old  (the  Vulgate).  On  this  account, 
although  accepting  the  Lancelot,  in  a  general  way,  as  belonging 
to  the  same  cycle  of  romances,58  he  did  not  actually  include  it  in 
his  series.  Furthermore,  in  carrying  out  his  plan  of  shortening 
the  whole,  his  own  predilections  evidently  suggested  to  him  that 
he  could  best  sacrifice  the  Mort  Artu.59  The  Grail  branches  proper 

pletely   in   the    dark   as   to    whether    any    such   was    ever    composed. 

Since  the  publication  of  Wechssler's  Habilitationschrift  Sommer 
has,  in  different  places,  argued  that  there  was  only  one  redaction  of 
the  Pseudo-Robert  trilogy  and  that  this  was  made  up  as  follows: 
1.  Estoire,  Merlin,  (where  the  Merlin,  however,  was  not  the  usual 
prose  version  of  Robert's  poem,  but  the  modification  of  that  version  in 
the  Spanish  Demanda,  I,  described  above,  p.  462,  note  12 J.  2.  Merlin- 
continuation.  3.  Queste-Mort  Arthur.  For  Sommer's  (very  confused) 
expositions  of  this  theory,  see  his  "The  Queste  of  the  Holy  Grail, 
forming  the  Third  Part  of  the  Trilogy  indicated  in  the  Suite  du  Merlin 
Huth-MS."  Romania,  XXXVI,  369 ff.,  543 ff.  (1907),  "Galahad  and 
Perceval"  MPh.  V,  291ff.  (1908),  "Zur  Kritik  der  altfranzosischen 
Artus-Romane  in  Prosa,"  Zs.  f.  rom.  Ph.,  XXXII,  327  ff.  (1908),  and, 
most  completely,  in  Beiheft  47  to  the  last-named  journal,  pp.  XIV ff. 
(1913).  The  grouping  for  1  and  2  suggested  by  Sommer  is  impro- 
bable in  itself,  and  has  been  well  refuted  by  Vetterman,  pp.  135 f. 
For  a  criticism  to  the  same  effect  of  Sommer's  first  articles  on  the 
subject  see  Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXXIV1,  99 ff.  (1909). 

Wechssler's  theory  concerning  the  development  of  the  Pseudo- 
Robert  cycle  seems  nearest  the  truth  —  only  the  following  restriction 
is  to  be  observed:  He  bases  his  hypothesis  that  his  Redaction  B  re- 
presented a  shortening  of  an  earlier  original  form  (A)  of  the  cycle  on 
the  idea  that  certain  prose  Tristan  MSS.  preserve  fragments  of 
a  Pseudo-Robert  Lancelot  and  that  such  MSS.  and  Malory  preserve, 
also,  some  episodes  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  Merlin  in  an  earlier  form. 
But  we  have  pointed  out  above  that  there  is  nothing  that  compels 
conviction  in  these  suppositions.  Nevertheless,  there  do  seem  to  have 
been  two  successive  abridgments  of  the  original  cycle.  See,  pp.  476  ff. 
below.  These  abridgments  involved,  however,  merely  condensation  and 
omissions  but  substantially  no  rewriting  of  the  parts. 

Cp.  the  passage  from  the  Huth-Merlin,  U,  57,  quoted,  above, 
p.  468,  note  35. 


476  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  the  cycle,  viz.  Estoire  and  Queste,  of  course,  had  to  be  represented 
in  the  new  cycle;  so  these  two  branches  were  retained  —  only  the 
latter  was  thoroughly  recast.  Similarly,  the  writer  decided  to 
retain  the  Merlin  branch  with  its  continuation,  but  supplanted 
the  continuation  of  the  Vulgate  with  a  new  version  that  accorded 
with  his  own  taste  for  combats  and  extravagant  adventures  in 
the  style  of  the  Lancelot. 

Next,  as  regards  the  Mort  Artu,  this  branch,  likewise,  was 
essential  to  the  cycle,  yet,  in  its  Vulgate  form,  it  was  too  close 
to  actual  life  to  lend  itself  to  modifications  in  the  same  fantastic 
sense  as  the  MerZm-continuation.  Consequently,  when  the  writer 
rewrote  this  branch,  in  order  to  adapt  it  to  the  new  cycle,  he 
chose  to  abridge  it  to  a  greater  extent  than  any  of  the  other  parts 
that  were  rewritten.  Moreover,  he  treated  it  as  if  it  were  virtu- 
ally a  part  of  the  Queste  —  a  mere  epilogue  to  it.  The  cycle,  as 
thus  developed,  fell  naturally  into  three  divisions  of  approximately 
equal  lengths:  1.  Estoire,  2.  Merlin  ~t~  continuation,  3.  Queste -f- 
Mort  Artu.60  Doubtless,  not  long  after  the  completion  of  the  cycle 
in  its  original  form,  however,  the  Conte  del  Brait61  was  composed. 
Now,  this  work  was,  in  a  large  measure,  a  compilation  from  the 
MerZm-continuation  of  Pseudo-Robert  —  consequently,  it  oc- 
curred to  some  scribe,  who  was  preparing  a  somewhat  abbreviated 
transcription62  of  the  cycle  that,  in  executing  his  plan  of  abridg- 
ment, he  could  leave  out  of  hi3  copy  of  the  above-mentioned  con- 
tinuation passages  that  had  already  been  taken  up  into  the  Conte 
del  Brait  and  simply  refer  the  reader  to  that  work  for  these  epi- 


69  Besides,  this  text  was  easy  to  shorten;  for  the  situation  at 
VI,  269  (Sommer's  edition  of  tho  Vulgate),  was  virtually  the  same  as 
at  the  beginning  of  the  romance:  In  both  Agravain  was  instilling 
suspicions  into  the  king's  mind  as  to  his  wife's  relations  with  Lancelot. 
Hence  Pseudo-Robert  omitted  everything  down  to  VI,  269. 

60  The  present  writer,  as  stated  above,  does  not  believe  that  the 
Lancelot  ever  constituted  an  integral  part  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle; 
hence,  this  conception  of  the  original  grouping  of  its  members  differs 
from  the  conceptions  of  Wechssler  and  Brugger,  respectively. 

61  With  regard  to  this  work,  cp.  pp.  480  ff.,  below. 
Wechssler's  Redaktion  B. 


The  Pseudo-Robert  de  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     477 

sodes.63  It  occurred  to  him,  also,  as  it  would  seem,  that  by  such 
omissions  and,  no  doubt,  by  other  abbreviations  here  and  there 
of  less  significance,  he  could  make  the  three  groups  into  which, 
as  stated  above,  the  cycle  naturally  fell,  not  merely  approximately 
equal  in  length,  but  strictly  so.64  Thus,  under  the  influence  of 
a  whim,  he  established  an  artificial  symmetry  between  the  three 
parts  of  the  cycle.65 

We  have,  it  is  true,  no  definite  statements  in  the  extant  frag- 
ments of  this  first  abbreviating  redaction  of  Pseudo-Robert  as  to 
the  exact  constitution  of  the  three  separate  divisions  of  which 
it  consisted.  Such  statements  we  possess  only  in  the  case  of  a  se- 
cond shortened  redaction66  of  the  cycle  which  is  represented  in 
a  fragmentary  form  by  the  Huth  MS.  But  the  lines  of  division 
between  the  members  of  the  cycle  there  indicated67  are  indubitably 

68  See,  especially,  the  statements  Huth-M. }  II,  57 f.  \  1721,  198 
and  in  MS.  112.  II,  f.  49b.  (Wechssler,  p.  43,  note).  On  the  first  of 
these  statements  cp.  Wechssler,  pp.  39 f.  and  on  the  relations  of  Pseudo- 
Robert  to  the  Conte  del  Brait,  ibid.  pp.  37 ff.  His  refusal,  however 
—  implied,  also,  in  this  passage  —  to  accept  Pseudo-Robert  as  a  deri- 
vative of  the  Vulgate  is  futile.  —  In  the  Huth-M.  passages  the  writer 
first  (pp.  57 f.)  appeals  to  Helie  to  write  up  the  adventures  which  he 
himself,  omits,  —  then  (pp.  172f.)  pretends  that  Helie  is  doing  it.  — 
next    (p.  198)    that    he  has  done  it.     All  this  is  plainly  mere  fiction. 

Cp.  the  passages  in  the  Portuguese  Demanda  and  MS.  343 
mentioned  p.  474,  note  57,  above. 

There  was  doubtless,  after  all,  the  difference  of  a  few  pages 
between  the  length  of  the  several  parts. 

The  number,  three,  as  the  number  of  the  Christian  Trinity,  is,  of 
course,  a  sort  of  obsession  throughout  the  Grail  romances.  It  hardly 
seems  probable,  however,  that  the  same  idea  is  responsible  for  the 
threefold  division  of  Pseudo-Robert. 

Wechssler's  Redaction  C.  It  was  based  upon  Redaction  B. 
67  Huth-M.,  1,  280,  with  which  II,  254  (last  sentence)  should, 
also,  be  compared.  In  the  first  of  these  passages;  after  the  statement 
that  "mon  signeur  de  Borron"  divided  the  history  into  three  equal 
parts,  it  is  said:  "Et  la  premiere  partie  fenist  il  au  commenchement 
de  ceste  queste  (i.  e.  the  quest  which  an  unknown  knight,  just  slain 
by  an  invisible  foe  had  pursued,  and  which  Balaain  at  this  point,  I,  280, 
takes  up),  et  la  seconde  el  commenchement  dou  graal  (i.  e.  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Queste  branch),  et  la  tierche  fenist  il  apries  la  mort 


478  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

different  from  the  true  original  ones;  for  allusions  in  the  frag- 
ments of  the  original  cycle  that  have  survived  prove,  beyond  ques- 
tion, as  has  been  stated,  that  in  its  unaltered  form  this  cycle  began 
with  an  Estoire.  For  the  same  reason,  however,  that,  in  the  first 
instance,  prompted  the  omission  of  the  Lancelot  from  the  new 
series  —  namely,  its  bulk  —  in  this  second  redaction  (archetype 
of  the  Huth  MS.),  the  Estoire  was  also  discarded.  Moreover,  the 
redactor  amputates,  so  to  speak,  a  whole  series  of  episodes  at  the 
end  of  the  MerZm-continuation  which  he  found  in  the  first  abridg- 
ed redaction  of  the  cycle.  Notwithstanding  these  omissions,  he 
still  retained  the  principle  of  a  tripartite  division  for  the  shortened 
cycle,  although  such  a  division  was  now  wholly  without  justi- 
fication and  its  adoption  had  the  awkward  result  of  making  the 
first  of  the  three  parts  end  in  the  middle  of  the  Merlin-con- 
tinuation.68 

From  the  specific  statement  in  the  Huth  MS.  as  to  the  equal 
lengths  of  the  three  parts  and  the  bounds  of  each,69  it  is  clear, 
furthermore,  that  the  prose  Joseph  which  we  find  in  that  MS. 
did  not  figure  in  the  reckoning  of  the  originator  of  this  new 
tripartite  division,  and  we  must  attribute  its  addition  to  the  series 
to  the  scribe  of  the  Huth  MS.,  itself,  who  not  unnaturally  missed 
an  account  of  the  early  history  of  the  Holy  Grail,  but,  in  trying 
to  make  good  this  deficiency,  unluckily  chose  a  version  of  that 
history  which  did  not  agree  with  the  narrative  of  the  other  members 
of  the  new  cycle.70 


de  Lanscelot,  a  chelui  point  meisme  quil  devise  de  la  mort  le  roi 
March  (i.  e.  at  the  end  of  the  Mort  Arthur  branch). 

The  writer,  whoever  he  was,  goes  on  to  say  that  he  makes  this 
statement  at  the  end  of  the  first  of  the  three  divisions,  in  order  to 
prevent  the  corruption  of  "l'estoire  dou  graal"  by  any  future  "trans- 
latours". 

We  find,  also,  ibid.,  II,  57  (quoted  above),  a  general  reference 
to  the  fact  that  the  work  is  divided  into  three  equal  parts. 

68  At  p.  280  of  the  Huth-Merlin,  Vol.  I. 

69  Cp.  p.  474,  note  57,  above. 

'°  There  is  really  no  reason  why  one  should  not  call  the  Huth 
MS.  "Redaction  D"  —  for,  by  introducing  the  Joseph  into  the  cycle, 


The  Pseudo-Robert  tie  Boron  Cycle  of  the  Prose  Romances     479 


he,    too,    gives   it   a   new   form  —  an   inconsistent   one,    to   be    sure. 

The  main  sources  of  the  Pseudo-Robert  cycle,  it  should  be  said, 
in  conclusion,  are  the  Vulgate  cycle  and  the  prose  Tristan.  Minor 
sources,  probably,  are  Chretien's  Perceval  and  its  continuations, 
Meraugis  de  Portlesguez,  and  Li  Chevaliers  as  Deus  Esprees.  Cp. 
Brugger,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Lift.,  XXX VI a,  190,  and  Vettermann, 
pp.  255ff.,  259ff.,  278ff. 

We  have  no  clue  to  the  identity  of  the  author  of  the  cycle.  It 
was  obviously  the  first  redactor  of  the  shortened  cycle,  not  the  author 
of  this  cycle  in  its  original  form,  that  speaks,  Huth- Merlin,  II,  57r 
of  the  author  of  the  Conte  del  Brait  as  "mon  signeur  Helye,  qui 
a  este  mes  compains  a  armes  et  en  joveneche  et  en  viellece."  Besides, 
one  cannot  even  feel  certain  that  this  statement  is  not  a  fiction.  — 
G.  Paris,  op.  cit.,  p.  LXIX;  dates  the  work  from  1225  or  1230,  which 
is,  surely,  too  early.  Being  dependent  on  the  prose  Tristan,  it  was, 
of  course,  later  than  that  work  in  its  earlier  form  —  i.  e.  later  than 
1230,  say.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  itself  used  in  the  cyclic  form 
of  the  prose  Tristan.  Consequently,  its  date  lies  somewhere  (approx- 
imately) between  the  early  thirties  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  1250. 
most  likely,    in   the    second    half  of  this  period. 


Chapter  VIII. 
Li  Contes  del  Brait  Merlin. 

A  work  of  the  above  name,  as  we  have  seen,  is  repeatedly 
referred  to  in  the  fragmentary  manuscript  tradition  of  the  Pseudo- 
Robert  cycle,1  and  its  author  is  called  maistre,2  or  (more  properly, 
no  doubt),  messire,3  Helies  (Relyes).  It  would  seem  to  have  con- 
sisted largely  of  the  usual  prose-renderings  of  Robert's  Merlin, 
plus  excerpts  from  the  Pseudo-Robert  MerZiw-continuation  in  its 
original  form4  —  namely,  those  portions  that  related  specifically 
to  Merlin  and  to  Baudemagus  (the  oldest  of  Arthur's  knights). 
The  work  takes  its  title  from  the  shriek  which  Merlin  uttered  (it 
was  his  last)  when  he  discovered  that  by  the  deception  of  Vivien 
he  was  imprisoned  foreover  in  his  tomb.5  This  cry  was  so  loud 
and  so  horrible  that  it  was  heard  through  the  length  and  breadth 
of  Logres  and  gave  rise  to  many  marvels.  Although  no  fragments, 
even,  of  this  romance  are  known  to  exist  in  the  original  French, 


1  Cp.  Ruth-Merlin,  II,  57!.,  172f.,  198  and  Wechssler,  pp.  42 f., 
notes,  (from  MS.  112)  and  p.  60  (from  MS.  343).  So,  too,  in  the 
Portuguese  and  Spanish  Demand-as,  fol.  179  and  ch.  355  (Queste 
section),  respectively,  (quoted  by  Sommer,  Romania,  XXXVI,  570). 
For  its  relation  to  Pseudo-Robert,  cp.  p.  476.  In  references  to  the 
work,  Brait  is  often  misspelt  Bret.  Through  some  error,  the  prose 
Tristan  is  called  "li  livres  clou  Bret."     Cp.  Lbseth,  p.  405. 

2  Ruth-Merlin,  II,  198. 

*  MS.  112.  Cp.  Wechssler  p.  51.  Maistre  would  imply  that  the 
author  was  a  professional  scholar,  messir  that  he  was  a  knight.  G.  Paris, 
Huth-Merlin,  I.  pp.  XXXI  f.,  has  offered  various  suggestions  as  to  the 
identity  of  Helie,  but  none  of  them  are  certain. 

Cp.  G.  Paris,  Huth-M.,  pp.  LXXIIff.    The  best  discussion  of  the 
subject  is  Wechssler's,  pp.  37 ff.     See,  too,  a   good  summary,   Vetter 
mann,  p.  97. 

6  Ruth-Merlin,  II,  198,  and  I,  p.  LXXXV  (from  the  Spanish 
Baladro). 


Li  C  antes  del  Br  ait  Merlin  4&* 

the  major  part  of  it  has  been,  doubtless,  preserved  in  a  Spanish 
version  entitled  El  Baladro  del  Sabio  Merlin,6  and  an  examination 
of  such  information  concerning  the  contents  of  the  Spanish  work 
as  is  now  available  seems  to  show  that  the  author  of  the  Conte  del 
Br  ait,  although  he  compiled  his  romance,  in  the  main,  from  the 
sources  mentioned  above,  in  the  case  of  the  Pseudo- Robert  Merlw- 
continuation  did  not  confine  himself  merely  to  reproducing  the 
text  of  his  original— rather  he  redacted,  apparently,  the  excerpts 
which  he  made  from  that  continuation  and  added  inventions  of 


fl  Printed  at  Burgos  in  1498.  It  was  composed,  probably,  early 
in  the  fifteenth  century.  A  copy  in  the  possession  of  the  Marquis  of 
Pidal  at  Madrid  cp.  G.  Paris,  Huth-M.,  p.  LXXH,  —  is  the  only  one 
extant,  as  far  as  is  known.  G.  Paris,  op.  cit.,  pp.  LXXXIff.  has  printed 
a  few  extracts  from  it  —  also,  the  chapter  headings.  Our  knowledge 
of  its  contents  is  still  limited  to  these  meagre  materials,  since  the  book 
has  never  been  reprinted.  Portions  of  the  Conte  del  Brait  appear 
also  to  have  been  preserved  in  the  Spanish  Demanda  I.  For  a  list 
of  the  specific  passages, involved  cp.  Vettermann,  pp.  124 f.  In  the  Zs. 
f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.7  XXIX1,  pp.  121  ff.,  Brugger  has  discussed  the 
fragmentary  Spanish  forms  of  the  Conte  del  Brait. 

G.  Paris,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  LXXIIff.,  did  not  regard  the  Spanish 
Baladro  as  a  translation  of  the  Conte  del  Brait,  but  as  a  compilation 
from  the  Pseudo-Robert  j'lfe  Win-continuation  and  the  Conte  Del  Brait 
combined  to  which  the  name  of  the  latter  was  given.  Apart  from  the 
arguments  for  a  contrary  view  which  Wechssler,  pp.  37 ff.,  has  ad- 
vanced, it  is  to  be  observed  that  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
the  Conte  del  Brait  was  subsequent  to  the  3ftfWm-continuation,  just 
mentioned,  in  its  original  form,  and  dependent  on  it.  One  can  under- 
stand why  the  redactor  of  the  new  cycle,  who  was  giving  such  a  form 
to  his  ilfeWm-continuation  as  to  bring  it  into  close  conformity  witb 
the  spirit  of  the  Lancelot,  should  take  over  the  character  of  Baude- 
magus  from  the  latter  into  his  own  work  and  associate  him  closely 
with  Merlin,  but  in  the  case  of  an  independent  romance,  such  as  Paris 
supposes  the  Conte  del  Brait  to  have  been,  no  such  reason  would 
have  existed.  Baudemagus  played  such  a  large  role  in  the  lost  French 
romance  that  in  the  Pseudo-Robert  Merlin  —  continuation  of  MS.  112 
(Cp.  Wechssler.  p.  43,  note)  the  redactor  declares  that  a  certain  in- 
cident is  omitted  from  his  own  work  and  told  in  the  Conte  del  Brait 
"por  ce  quelle  appartient  a  la  vie  Baudemagus.'"  This  accords  entirely 
with  what  we  know  of  the  Spanish  Baladro. 


482  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

his  own,  as  in  the  case  of  the  wonders  that  attended  Merlin's  last 
cry  of  despair.  Until  the  Spanish  Baladro,  however,  has  been 
published,  it  is  impossible  to  characterize  more  fully,  even  at  se- 
cond hand,  the  Conte  del  Br  ait.  In  the  meanwhile,  there  is  no 
reason  to  believe  that  this  romance  differed  materially  either  in 
the  nature  of  its  contents  or  in  literary  quality  from  the  Pseudo- 
Robert  cycle.7 


7  In  referring  the  reader  to  the  Conte  del  Brait  for  matters 
which  he  himself  omits,  the  redactor  of  the  shortened  form  of  the 
cycle  represented  by  the  Huth-Merlin  speaks  ibid.,  II,  58,  of  that 
work  as  ;'une  petite  branke  qui  apartient  a  mon  livre''  and  declares 
that  he  only  omits  it  (i.  e.  from  his  redaction  of  Pseudo-Robert),  be- 
cause it  would  make  his  "livre"  too  large.  Similarly,  op.  cit.  II,  172f. 
It  is  obvious,  however,  that  the  Conte  del  Brait  was,  in  reality,  com- 
posed as  a  separate  work. 


Chapter  IX. 
The  Prose  Tristan, 

Superior  even  to  the  prose  Lancelot  in  popularity,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  if  we  may  judge  by  the  number  of  MSS.  in  which 
it  has  been  preserved,  was  the  prose  Tristan1  —  a  romance  of 


1  The  prose  Tristan  has  not  been  reprinted  since  the  sixteenth 
century.  MSS.  of  the  romance  are  very  numerous,  the  earliest  dated 
one  (and  probably  as  early  as  any),  viz.,  750,  Bibl.  Nat.,  bearing  the 
date,  1278.  In  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  alone  there  are  twenty- 
four  that  contain  the  whole  romance  or  parts  of  it;  in  the  British 
Museum,  six.  For  the  enumeration  and  description  of  all  prose 
Tristan  MSS.  —  and  of  the  early  prints  of  the  romance,  also,  — 
cp.  E.  Loseth's  Le  roman  en  prose  de  Tristan,  le  roman  de  Palamede, 
et  la  compilation  de  Rusticien  de  Pise:  analyse  critique  d'aprds 
les  manuscrits  de  Paris,  pp.  IHff.,  Paris,  1890  (no.  82  in  the 
Bibliotheque  de  l'Ecole  des  Hautes  Etudes:  Section  des  Sciences 
historiques  et  philologiques),  and  his  Le  Tristan  et  le  Palamede  des 
manuscrits  francais  du  British  Museum,  Christiania  1905  (Viden- 
skabs-Selskabets  Skrifter.  IT,  Hist.-Filos.  Klasse,  1905,  No.  4).  In 
my  discussion  of  the  romance  I  shall  refer  to  the  first  of  these  publi- 
cations —  which  is  the  leading  authority  on  everything  pertaining  to 
the  prose  Tristan  —  simply  as  "Lbseth". 

Following  are  the  early  prints  of  the  romance:  2  vols.  Eouen 
(Jehan  le  Bourgoys)  1489;  2  vols.  Paris  (A.  Verard)  in  two  undated 
editions,  which  probably  belong  to  1496  and  1603,  respectively; 
2  vols.  Paris  (Michel  Le  Noir)  1514  and  1520;  Paris  (Denis  Janot), 
undated,  but  probably  1533.  There  were,  moreover,  three  (Paris) 
editions  of  Jean  Maugins  modernisation  of  the  romance,  entitled  Le 
Premier  Livre  du  Nouveau  Tristan.  They  are  dated,  respectively, 
1554,  1567,  1586,  and  the  successive  publishers  were  veuve  Maurice 
de  la  Porte,  Gabriel  Buon  and  Nicolas  Bonfons.  On  these  early 
prints,  besides  Loseth's  preface,  cp.  Ernst  Schurhoff:  Uber  den  Tristan- 
Roman  des  Jean  Maugin,  Halle  diss.  1909. 

For  Danish,  Russian,  Italian,  German  and  Spanish  translations 
and  derivatives  of  the  prose  Tristan,  cp.  Loseth,  pp.  IV f.  and  Golther's 


484  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

similar  design  as  the  former  and  of  equal  prolixity.  We  have 
seen  that  the  Lancelot-Guinevere  romance  was,  in  origin,  merely 
a  re-adaptation  by  Chretien  of  the  legend  of  Tristan  and  Iseult, 
to  which  he  himself  had  already  devoted  a  poem.  In  their  prose 
forms.,  however,  the  relations  of  the  romances  of  these  famous 
couples,  respectively,  are  exactly  reversed,  for  the  prose  Tristan 
in  plainly  modelled  after  the  prose  Lancelot.2  This  means  that 
the  old  Celtic  story  of  lawless  and  irresistible  passion,  with  all 
the  primitive  elements,  both  of  poetry  and  of  barbarism,  which 
had  continued  to  cling  to  it  even  in  the  hands  of  the  French  metri- 


Tristan  und  Isolde,  pp.  127  ff.,  133ff.  For  the  Spanish  derivatives 
see,  especially,  Part  IV,  below.  The  prose  Tristan  constitutes  the  main 
basis  of  the  (prose)  La  Tavola  Ritonda  o  L'Istoria  di  Tristano, 
edited  by  F.  L.  Polidori,  2  vols.  (Bologna,  1864-1865).  which  belongs 
probably  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  German  "volksbuch",  Die  Histori  von  herren  Tristan  und 
der  schoenen  Isalden  von  Irlande,  Augsburg  (Anton  Sorg),  1484, 
has  been  edited  latterly  (Jena,  1912)  by  R.  Benz.  He  has  taken 
into  consideration,  also,  the  later  fifteenth  century  issues  of  this  book. 

There  are  no  MSS.  or  early  prints  of  the  prose  Tristan  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean,  so  that  the  present  writer,  althongh  he  has  read 
through  the  1520  print,  uses  for  reference  Lbseth's  admirable 
analysis  of  the  romance.  The  only  portions  of  it  that  are  generally 
accessible  in  the  original  text  are  those  which  Bedier  has  printed 
inr  his  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II.  321  —  395.  A  brief, 
but  good,  analysis  of  the  romance  —  with  especial  reference 
to  those  elements  o£  the  narrative  that  connect  it  with  the  earlier 
metrical  versions  is  given  by  W.  Golther,  Tristan  und  Isolde, 
pp.  114 — 126  (Leipzig,  1907).  Cp.,  too.  Dunlop-Wilson,  History  of 
Fiction,  I.   196ff. 

2  B rugger's  assertion,  Zs.  f.  frz.  Spr.  u.  Litt.,  XXIX1,  135, 
that  the  prose  Tristan  and  the  Vulgate  cycle  (or  his  hypothetical 
earlier  redactions  of  the  latter)  were  originally  independent  of  each 
other  is  erroneous.  Even  in  its  simpler  form  the  Tristan  shows  the 
influence  of  the  latter  —  especially,  the  Lancelot  branch  —  throughout. 
Grober,  Grundriss,  Band  [I,  Abt.  I,  p.  1007,  fully  recognizes  this. 
Cp.,  too,  the  second  of  Lbseth's  publications  cited  in  the  previous  note, 
pp.  34 ff.  Lancelots  prominence  in  the  Tristan  is,  of  course,  entirely 
due  to  the  prose  Lancelot,  and  the  former  has,  also,  borrowed  from 
the  latter  many  of  its  subordinate  characters. 


The  Prose  Tristan  485 

cal  romancers,  was  now  to  be  diluted  with  innumerable  episodes 
that  reflected  the  occupations,  tastes,  and  ideals  of  French  lords 
and  ladies  in  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth  century  —  endless 
descriptions  of  jousts  and  tournaments,  knight-errant  adventures, 
love-affairs  conducted  in  the  fashion  of  a  highly  organized  so- 
ciety, with  letters  and  poems  (lais)  addressed  by  the  lover  to  his 
mistress3  —  and  so  on. 

As  with  the  prose  Lancelot,  so  with  the  prose  Tristan  —  the 
romance  in  its  original  form  has  not  come  down  to  modern  times.4 
The  extant  MSS.  often  differ  greatly  from  each  other,  but  two 
versions,  especially,  of  the  original  are  distinguishable  among 
them:5  1.  an  earlier  and  better  version,  which  is  relatively  short 
and  simple,  2.  a  longer  and  later  one,  which  is  sometimes  called 
''the  common  version",  since  it  exists  in  much  the  largest  number 
of  MSS.,  and  sometimes  "the  cyclic  version",  since  the  MSS. 
of  this  version  regularly  connect  the  romance  with  the  Vulgate, 
by  a  reference  to  the  Mort  Artu  or  even  (in  some  MSS.)  by  the 
incorporation  of  that  romance6  and,  still  further,  by  the  incor- 
poration of  the  greater  part  of  the  Queste  branch,  in  a  mixture 
of  its  Vulgate  and  Pseudo-Robert  forms.7    The  first  of  these  ver- 

Such  letters  and  poems  are  wanting  in  the  Lancelot. 

4  Cp.  Loseth,  p.  XXIV. 

6  Op.  cit.,  pp.  XII ff.  Loseth  here  describes  the  Tristan  of  the 
extant  MSS.  as  consisting  merely  of  "des  fragments  juxtaposes  de 
redactions  differentes."  These  MSS.  make  no  division  within  the 
romance,  itself,  but,  for  convenience'  sake,  scholars  have  been  accustomed 
to  divide  it  into  two  parts.  In  the  better  version,  according  to  Loseth, 
Part  I  ends  with  Daras's  liberation  of  his  prisoners,  Tristan,  Palamede 
and  Dinadan  (§  183),  in  the  common  version  with  the  Cornishmen's 
defeat  of  the  Saxons  (§  279).     Cp.  op.  cit,  p.  V,  note  1. 

6  Cp.  Section  XVI  of  Loseth's  preface.  The  reference  to  the 
Mort  Artu  occurs  pp.  HOf.  The  romancer  there  remarks  that 
Mordred  will  be  the  cause  of  Arthur's  death,  "comme  nous  deviserons 
vers  la  fin  de  nostre  livre." 

Cp.  Loseth's  preface,  p.  XII,  note  1,  and  p.  XVI  —  also, 
sections  383  a  —  394  a  and  398  a  of  his  analysis.  Influenced,  most 
likely,  by  G.  Paris,  who  regarded  the  Pseudo  -Robert  Queste  as  earlier 
than  the  Vulgate,  LQseth,  p.  XVI,  observes  that  the  former  was,  no 
doubt,  the  first  to  be  intercalated  in  the  Tristan  MSS.     But  Paris's 


486  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

sions  is  attributed  to  a  missire  Luce,  knight  and  lord  of  the  castle 
of  Gaut8  (Gant,  Gat,  Gast,  etc.)  near  Salisbury,  the  second  to  a 
missire  Helie  (Helyes,  Helys,  etc.)  de  Boron  (Berron,  etc.),  who 
claims  to  be  a  friend  and  relative  of  Robert  de  Boron.9  In  both 
versions  we  have  the  usual  fraudulent  declaration  that  the  ro- 
mance is  translated  from  a  Latin  original. 

Besides,  Luce,  in  a  prologue,  apologizes,  as  a  native  of  Eng- 
land, for  the  quality  of  his  French,  whilst  Helie  pretends  to  be 


view  is  certainly  erroneous  —  so  the  reverse  of  Loseth's  remark  is 
probably  true.  Cp.,  still  further,  on  this  subject  Wechssler's  Habilitations- 
schrift,  pp.  16ff.,  60 ff. 

According  to  Loseth.  p.  XII,  only  Part  II  of  the  earlier  version 
is  preserved  in  our  MSS. 

8  In  all  modern  discussions  of  the  prose  Tristan,  this  name 
appears  as  „Luce(s)  de  Gast"  —  presumably,  because  Count  Tressan's 
(eighteenth  century)  analysis  first  gave  this  form  of  the  name  cur- 
rency. But,  to  judge  by  Loseth's  two  publications,  mentioned  above, 
and  by  the  description  of  the  Tristan  MSS.  in  the  British  Museum 
in  Ward's  Catalogue,  I,  356 ff.,  the  form,  Gast,  does  not  occur  a 
single  time  in  all  the  MSS.  of  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  and  British 
Museum.  Under  these  circumstances,  I  do  not  believe  that  we  are 
justified  in  clinging  to  the  traditional  form  of  the  name  just  mentioned. 
Of  the  great  variety  of  forms  (Gant,  Cant,  Gail,  Cal,  etc.)  in  which 
the  name  is  found  in  our  MSS.,  Gaut  seems  most  likely  to  have  been 
the  original  form.  Except  Gant  (doubtless,  a  corruption  of  Gaut),  it 
occurs  oftener  than  any  other,  and  *roin  it  and  its  equivalent,  Gait  — 
both  of  which  are  common  in  Old  French,  as  representatives  of 
Germanic  wald  =  wood  —  the  other  variant  forms  are  easily  explained. 
I  have,  consequently,  adopted  it  in  the  text  above. 

For  the  ascription  of  the  Tristan,  in  its  original  form,  to  this 
Luce,  cp.  the  passages  listed  in  Loseth's  Index  under  Luce  de  Gast  — 
also,  Wards  Catalogue,  I,  357f.,  363,  365  . 

For  this  claim  and  the  other  details  concerning  the  pretended 
Helie  de  Boron  (Borron)  which  I  am  here  giving,  see  the  Epilogue 
to  the  prose  Tristan  in  Loseth,  pp.  402 ff.  Cp.  ibid.  p.  402,  note  4, 
for  earlier  modern  works  in  which  this  epilogue  had  been  printed. 
This  epilogue  is  plainly  connected  with  the  prologue  to  Palamedes 
and  doubtless,  derived  from  it.  One  can  easily  study  the  two  together 
in  Hucher,  Le  Saint  Graal,  I,  where  they  are  printed,  respectively, 
pp.  35 ff.  (note),  and  pp  156 ff.  Cp.  too,  G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin,  I, 
pp.  XXXIIIff. 


The  Prose  Tristan  487 

a  member  of  the  distinguished  family  of  Barres  in  Northern 
France10  —  "lords  of  Outres  in  Romenie,  which  is  now  called 
France".  The  latter  asserts,  moreover,  that  his  king  (of  what 
country  he  does  not  specify),11  being  much  pleased  with  his  pre- 
sent work  (the  Tristan),  had  commanded  him  to  write  another 
book  "which  would  contain  all  the  matter  that  was  wanting  in 
this  book."  This  task,  he  avers,  he  will  take  up  "as  soon  as  the 
great  cold  of  the  present  winter  is  past  and  we  are  in  the  sweet 
season  called  spring",  when  he  will  have  become  rested  from  his 
five  years'  arduous  labors  on  the  Tristan.  The  new  book,  too, 
is  to  be  translated  from  the  Latin,  but  the  author  intends  also 
to  draw  upon  Master  Walter  Map's  Lancelot,  the  great  books 
of  Robert  de  Boron  (doubtless,  the  Pseudo- Robert  cycle)  and  the 
book  of  Luce  de  Gaut  (i.  e.  the  prose  Tristan  in  its  earlier  form). 
The  name  of  this  second  author,  or,  rather  redactor  —  Helie  de 
Boron  —  is  certainly  fictitious,12  and  the  same  thing  is  doubtless 
true  of  "Luce  de  (du)  Gaut  (Gast,  etc.)"  —  the  pretended  name 
of  the  author  of  the  first  version.  We  know,  therefore,  nothing 
with  regard  to  the  real  author  of  either  version  of  the  romance; 
with  regard  to  its  date,  however,  we  can  hardly  go  wrong  in  ac- 
cepting  the  decade,    1226 — 1235,  as  the  period   in  which  it    - 


10  On  this  family  see  Hucher,  Le  Saint  Graal,  I,  37 ff.  This 
author's  attempt  to  connect  himself  with  it,  like  all  other  evidence, 
tends  to  prove  that  he  was  a  Frenchman. 

11  Some  MSS.  (cp.  Loseth,  p.  405)  call  the  king,  Henry  (one 
even  Henry  d'Engleterre),  but  this  is  very  likely  imitated  from  the 
Vulgate  cycle   (end   of  the  Queste  or  beginning  of  the  Mort  Artu). 

12  G.  Paris,  Huth-Merlin,  I,  pp.  XXXIlIff.,  had  given  good  reasons 
for  believing  that  the  attribution  of  the  second  version  of  the  Tristan 
to  this  pretended  Helie  de  Boron  was  imitated  from  the  prologue  to 
Palamedes  (Guiron  le  Courtois),  which  was  anterior  to  this  version, 
although  posterior  to  the  first.  The  name,  in  the  first  instance,  no 
doubt,  was  attached  to  the  Conte  del  Brait  (Bret).  Cp.  p.  480,  note  1, 
above.  Pseudo-Helie  confounded  this  last-named  work,  it  seems,  with 
the  earlier  version  of  the  Tristan,  and  hence  refers  to  the  latter 
wrongly  as  "li  Bret"  or  „le  livre  du  Bret".  Cp.  Loseth,  p.  1  and 
p.  405,  respectively. 


488  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

in  its  original  form  —  was  composed.13 

The  great  innovation  which  the  author  of  the  prose  Tristan 
introduces  into  the  tradition  of  his  hero  is  that  he  completes  the 
Arthurization  of  the  latter's  story  and  makes  him,  in  the  course 
of  the  romance,  a  knight  of  the  Round  Table,14  like  Gawain,  Lance- 
lot, and  the  rest.  In  the  hands  of  this  new  author,  Tristan  re- 
tains from  the  earlier  tradition  his  especial  skill  in  music  and 
song  and  his  old  astuteness  in  evading  detection  in  his  secret  in- 
trigue with  Iseult,  but,  otherwise,  he  is  hardly  distinguished  either 


13  The  earliest  dated  MS.  of  the  romance  (MS.  750,  Bibl.  Nat.) 
bears  the  date,  1278,  as  we  have  stated,  and  since  that  MS.  (MS.  750, 
Bibl.  Nat.)  happens  to  belong  to  the  second  version,  we  know  that 
even  this  later  version  was  in  existence  by  the  aforesaid  date.  As  regards 
the  original  romance,  we  know  that  it  was  composed  before  1240,  for 
Palamcdes,  which  is  dependent  on  it,  was  in  existence  by  that  year. 
See  chapter  XI.  The  Tristan,  itself,  then,  could  hardly  have  been 
composed  later  than  1235.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Vulgate  Merlin- 
continuation  appears  to  be  one  of  its  sources. 

An  interesting  early  borrowing  from  our  romance  will  be  found 
in  Brunetto  Latini's  Tresor,  p.  488  (Chabaille's  edition,  1863)  — 
composed  between,  1260  and  1269.  The  author  here  adopts  a  de- 
scription of  Iseult  in  the  prose  Tristan  as  a  model  of  style. 

The  only  evidence  in  regard  to  the  terminus  a  quo  of  our 
romance  is  that  which  is  supplied  by  the  fact  of  its  dependence  on 
the  Vulgate  cycle.  Except  for  its  il/er/m-continuation,  as  we  have 
seen  (p.  453),  the  Vulgate  was  completed,  in  all  likelihood,  early  in 
the  second  decade  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Hence  the  Tristan,  in 
its  original  form,  must  have  been  subsequent,  say,  to  1215.  Indeed, 
if  the  character  of  Pellinor  in  the  Tristan  is  taken  from  the  Merlin- 
continuation  of  the  Vulgate,  as  seems  certain  (cp.  Bruce,  MPh.,  XVI, 
337 ff.),  we  should  have  to  advance  the  composition  of  the  former  to 
1230  or  somewhat  later,  for  the  continuation  in  question,  as  said 
above,  can  hardly  be  earlier  than  1225. 

On  the  basis  of  its  falling  between  the  Lancelot  and  Palamedes, 
Lbseth,  p.  XXIV,  dates  our  romance  between  1215  and  1230.  Bedier, 
similarly,  in  his  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II,  309,  dates  it  about 
1230.  I  should,  myself,  be  inclined  to  date  it  in  the  early  thirties 
of  +he  thirteenth  century. 

Lbseth,    p.  149.      He   had   already,    however,    been    associated 
with  Arthur's  knights  in  various*  ways. 


The  Prose  Tristan  489 

in  character  or  accomplishments  from  his  companion-in-arms, 
Lancelot.  Like  the  latter,  he  spends  his  time  largely  in  going 
from  tournament  to  tournament  —  whether  in  Cornwall  or  Logres 
—  and,  in  all  the  situations  of  life,  he  displays  the  usual  knightly 
qualities  of  courtesy  and  generosity,  to  say  nothing  of  valor.  Simi- 
larly, he  excels  in  fencing  and  chess-playing  and  in  the  other  ac- 
complishments that  were  prized  most  highly  in  aristocratic  circles 
of  the  thirteenth  century.  In  one  respect,  doubtless,  he  resembles 
the  actual  members  of  those  circles  more  closely  than  was  the 
case  with  Lancelot:  as  a  lover,  his  fidelity  was  not  above  reproach.16 
Finally,  like  the  other  knights  who  were  preeminent  at  Arthur's 
court,  he  is  made  a  participant  in  the  Grail  quest,16  although  his 
disqualifications  for  success  in  an  enterprise  to  achieve  which 
chastity  was  an  indispensable  condition,  were  even  more  obvious 
than  Lancelot's. 

The  prose  Tristan  follows  the  tradition  of  the  primitive  (lost) 
metrical  romance17  concerning  its  hero,  and  it  derives  from  this 
tradition,  of  course,  the  primary  conception  of  the  adulterous  pas- 
sion of  Tristan  and  Iseult,  including  even  the  parts  that  are  played 
by  the  minor  characters  in  the  drama,  Bringvain  and  Andret 
(Audret);  but  the  individual  episodes  which  our  author  inherited 
from  his  source  are  so  lost  in  the  flood  of  new  and,  for  the  most 
part,  inferior  inventions,  that  they  hardly  constitute  any  longer 
the  most  prominent  element  in  the  story.  They  occur  naturally 
in  those  portions  of  the  romance  in  which  Cornwall  is  the  scene 

16  Cp.,  especially,  his  intrigue  with  Segurade's  wife,  Loseth,  p.  25. 
In  the  romance  Iseult,  too,  has  other  lovers,  besides  Tristan,  viz. 
Palamedes    and  Kahedin,    but   she   grants   her  favors  only  to  Tristan. 

18  Loseth,  pp.  283ff. 

17  Cp.Bredier's  statement  in  his  edition  of  Thomas's  Tristan,  II,  309. 
He  takes  the  primitive  romance  as  the  immediate  source  of  the  prose. 
It  was  formerly  customary  to  assume  that  the  prose  Tristan  was  based 
on  Chretien's  lost  Tristan  poem.  Cp.  G.  Paris,  Manuel,  p.  101, 
Loseth,  p.  XXV,  and  G.  Grober,  Grundriss,  Band  II,  Abt.  I,  p.  1007. 
At  a  later  period,  however,  Paris,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  155,  note  5,  above), 
denied  that  Chretien  ever  wrote  a  Tristan  romance  in  any  proper 
sense.  On  this  question  see  loc.  cit.  above  and  Foerster's  Chretien 
Wbrterbuch,  Introduction,  pp.  47  ff. 


490  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

of  action,  and  they  cover  more  especially  the  period  of  the  hero's 
youth  up  to  the  point  where  the  narrative  of  the  lovers  is  linked 
up  with  that  of  Lancelot  and  Guinevere.18    At  this  point  these 
episodes  are  dropped  and  only  resumed,  when  Tristan  returns  from 
Logres  to  Marc's  court  for  a  while19  and  again  runs  the  gauntlet 
of  detection  in  his  continued  amours  with  the  queen.    After  this 
the  influence  of  the  source  ceases,  for  in  the  prose  romance  even 
the  death  of  the  hero  is  differently  managed,  Tristan  being  here 
the  victim  of  Marc's  treachery,  who,  in  a  fit  of  jealousy,  thrusts 
a  poisoned  spear  through  his  nephew,  as  the  latter  was  singing 
a  lay  to  Iseult  in  her  apartment.20    The  character  of  Marc,  we 
may  observe,  is  blackened  throughout  the  prose  romance.    Here 
he  is  false  and  treacherous,  a  tyrant  and  a  coward.   The  author's 
object,   of  course,  in   this  degradation  of   the  wronged  husband 
was  to  lessen  the  opprobrium  of  his  hero's  adultery,  but  the  tragie 
situation  was,  surely,  much  finer  in  the  old  story,  where  even 
the  nephew  committing  the  wrong  could  not  dispute  the  essentially 
noble  and  generous  character  of  the  king  and  could  plead  no  excuse 
for  dishonoring  him,  save  the  force  of  a  passion  which  was  as  ir- 
resistible as  Fate. 

It  was  not  only,  however,  with  respect  to  the  character  of 
Marc  that  our  author  exercises  the  usual  privilege  of  the  roman- 
cers in  altering  or  modifying  his  originals.  Thus  the  birth  of 
the  hero,  as  well  as  his  death,  is  differently  related  in  the  prose 
romance,21  as  compared  with  the  Tristan  poems.  In  the  former, 
the  hero's  father,  Meliadus,  King  of  Leonois,  is  held  captive  by 
a  fairy  mistress  in  her  tower,  in  the  midst  of  a  forest,  and,  through 
his  captor's  magical  powers,  loses  all  memory  of  his  wife.  This 
wife,  however,  who  is  pregnant,  goes  in  search  of  him  in  this 
same  forest,  and,  having  learned  there  from  Merlin,22  who  is  dis- 
guised as  a  forester,  that  she  will  never  see  her  husband  again, 


18  Loseth,  p.  46.  19  Ibid.,  pp.  172ff.  20  Pp.  383«. 

21  Pp.  161 

22  Merlin  here  plays  somewhat  the  same  part  towards  the  child, 
Tristan,  that  he  does  towards  young  Arthur  in  Robert  de  Boron's 
Merlin.     Our  author  is,  of  course,  imitating  Robert. 


Tlie.  Prose  Tristan  491 

she  gives  birth  to  a  son  in  the  forest  and  dies.,  after  having  con- 
ferred the  name  of  Tristan  on  the  child,  because  of  the  sorrowful 
circumstances  under  which  he  was  born.  Two  kinsmen  of  Meliadus, 
who  now  arrive  on  the  scene,  are  about  to  kill  the  infant,  in  order 
that  they,  themselves,  may  get  possession  of  the  kingdom,  but 
a  damsel  of  the  dead  queen  persuades  them  to  renounce  the  pro- 
ject on  the  condition  that  she  will  hide  the  child  so  effectively 
that  he  will  never  be  heard  of  again.  Merlin,  however,  is  the 
means  of  saving  the  child  from  this  fate  and  of  the  liberation  of 
Meliadus.  Moreover,  it  is  on  his  advice  that  Tristan  is  committed 
to  the  tutelage  of  Gouvernal. 

Space  fails  us  to  note  the  romancer's  numerous  alterations 
of  his  source  —  some  of  them  even  more  audacious  than  the  one 
which  I  have  just  cited.  We  can  only  remark  that  he  is  especially 
fond  of  changing  the  traditional  order  of  incidents  and  of  giving 
the  old  motifs  new  connections  in  the  story.  For  example,  the 
incident  of  the  evening  rendezvous  at  which  Tristan  and  Isenlt, 
having  detected  Marc  in  the  tree  above  them,  give  their  conver- 
sation such  a  turn  as  to  deceive  him,  is  postponed  to  a  later  point 
in  the  narrative,23  and  the  motif  of  the  tell-tale  blood-stains  from 
Tristan's  wound  on  the  bed-clothing  of  his  mistress  is  no  longer 
connected  with  Iseult  of  Cornwall,  but  with  the  wife  of  Segurade.2* 
Moreover,  the  rationalizing  tendency  is  even  stronger  in  this  ro- 
mance than  in  the  Lanaelot.  Consequently,  the  fairy-tale  voyages 
of  the  hero  in  the  poetical  tradition  are  stripped  of  their  marvellous 
quality  and  even  the  philtre  becomes  virtually  superfluous  in  the 
development  of  the  lovers'  passion.25 

Among  the  noteworthy  additions  to  the  story  are  to  be  num- 
bered many  new  episodes  and  many  new  characters.  The  latter 
are  drawn  mainly  from  the  Vulgate  cycle  —  especially,  the  Lancelot 
and  the  Queste  —  e.  g.  Lancelot,  Hector,  Perceval,  Galahad  — 
who  here,  however,  is  thoroughly  secularized  and  does  not  differ 
in  any  essential  from  the  other  knights  —  Sagremor,  etc.  Never- 
theless, two  of  the  new  characters,  who  fill  roles  of  considerable 
importance  in  the  romance  —  viz.  Lamorat,   Perceval's  brother, 

23  Pp.  186ff.  *4  P.  25.  *5  Pp.  29f. 


492  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

and  Palamedes  —  were  invented  by  its  author.  The  second  of  these 
characters  sprang,  doubtless,  in  the  first  instance  from  that  of  the 
lying  seneschal  in  the  old  poem,  who  endeavored  to  deprive  Tristan 
of  his  credit  for  the  slaying  of  the  dragon  near  Dublin,  but  our 
author,  though  still  representing  him  as  a  lover  of  Iseult's,  has 
converted  him  into  a  model  of  generosity  and  courtesy,  even  towards 
his  successful  rival  (Tristan),  so  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  sym- 
pathetic figures  in  the  romance.  The  creation  of  Lamorat  was, 
doubtless,  due  to  the  writer's  desire  to  interweave  his  hero's  story 
more  closely  with  that  of  Perceval. 

In  the  way  of  incident  the  most  original  additions  are  the 
series  of  episodes  at  the  beginning  of  the  romance  that  make  up 
the  history  of  Tristan's  ancestors.  Like  Lancelot,  Tristan  here 
is  represented  as  of  the  lineage  of  King  David  and  Joseph  of 
Arimathea.26  Especially  striking  in  this  preliminary  narrative  is 
the  story  of  the  hero's  grandmother,  Chelinde,  with  its  strange 
medley  of  motifs,  drawn  from  widely  separated  sources27  —  Athis 
and  Prophilias  (the  mediaeval  romance  of  ideal  friendship),  the 
legend  of  Oedipus  (the  great  tragic  tale  of  incest),  some  fairy- 
tale of  a  giant  who  proposes  riddles  to  his  captives  with  life  as 
the  stake,  the  oriental  conte  of  the  much-married  princess.  It  is 
the  last-named  element,  in  particular,  that  constitutes  the  back- 
bone of  Chelinde's  weirdly  scandalous  history,  and  we  have  here  in 
its  earliest  preserved   form  the  tale  which   Boccaccio28  has  im- 


26  On  the  subject  of  Lancelot's  ancestry  see  Bruce,  RR,  IX,  250 ff. 
The  name  of  Tristan's  grandfather,  Sadoc,  —  here  represented  as  a  great- 
nephew  of  Joseph  of  Arimathea's  —  is,  as  I  have  pointed  out,  Historia 
Meriadoci  and  De  Ortu  Waluuanii,  p.  XXIIf.,  note  1  (Gottingen 
and  Baltimore,  1913),  taken  from  the  genealogy  of  Christ,  St.  Matthew, 
I,  14.  The  author  confounds  Joseph,  husband  of  the  Virgin  Mary, 
with  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  as  happens  elsewhere,  also,  in  the  romances. 

"  For  an  analysis  of  the  story  of  Chelinde  and  a  discussion  of 
its  sources  cp.,  especially,  Bruce,  "A  Boccaccio  Analogue  in  the  Old 
French  Prose  Tristan,"  RR,  I,  384ff.  (1910). 

28  Decameron,  II,  7.  The  heroine  is  here  named  Alatiel.  The 
Tristan  and  Boccaccio,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  article  just  cited,  go 
back  to  a  common  source  of  oriental  origin. 


Th*  Prose  Tristan  493 

mortalized  by  his  inimitable  vivacity  and  cynical  humor,  con- 
cerning the  daughter  of  the  Sultan  of  Babylon  who  is  betrothed 
to  a  pagan  monarch,  but  on  the  voyage  to  his  country,  where  the 
wedding  is  to  be  celebrated,  through  a  series  of  misadventures,  f  allB 
successively  into  the  possession  of  a  number  of  different  men,  with 
each  of  whom  she  is  compelled  to  cohabit.  According  to  the  Tristan, 
she  never  reaches  her  original  destination,  but  in  Bocaccio  she 
finally  turns  up  there,  after  having  passed  through  the  hands 
of  nine  lovers,  one  after  the  other,  and  is  able  to  satisfy  her  cre- 
dulous husband  with  respect  to  the  delay  in  her  arrival  by  the 
assertion  that  she  had  been  spending  the  time  in  a  nunnery. 

Genuine  mediaeval  traits  of  these  Chelinde  episodes  are  the 
following,  viz.  that  some  of  the  heroine's  lovers  get  their  names 
from  the  Latin  Bible29  and  that  St.  Augustine,  the  missionary, 
here  takes  the  place  of  Tiresias  in  the  Oedipus  legend  as  the  pro- 
phet who  discloses  the  terrible  truth  with  regard  to  the  incestuous 
union  of  the  mother  (Chelinde)  and  her  son  (Apollo).30 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  establish  what  portions  of  the  Tristan, 
as  it  is  preserved  in  our  MSS.,  belonged  to  the  romance  in  its 
original  form.  There  is  no  question,  however,  that  from  the  be- 
ginning its  author  aimed  at  enhancing  the  appeal  of  his  work  by 
interweaving  the  fortunes  of  his  hero  and  heroine  with  those  of 
the  specifically  Arthurian  characters  from  whom  they  had  hither- 
to stood  apart.  The  first  connection  of  this  nature  which  he  creates 
is  the  one  with  Lancelot  and  Guinevere,  when  Iseult  of  Cornwall, 
at  the  time  of  her  lover's  marriage  to  Iseult  of  Brittany,  wrote 
in  despair  to  Guinevere,  asking  her  advice  (p.  46),  and  received 
a  consolatory  answer.  Naturally,  Lancelot,  the  ideal  exemplar  of 
the  amour  couriois,  disapproved  of  this  act  of  infidelity  on  the 

29  Sadoc,  as  we  have  just  seen,  from  St.  Matthew,  I,  14;  his 
brother,  Nabusardan  (Nabuzardan)  from  IV  Liber  Regum,  XXV,  8, 
11,  20  (Nebuchadnezzar's  captain  of  the  guard)  and  elsewhere  in  the 
Old  Testament.  Cp.  Bruce,  MLN,  XXXIII,  136  (1918).  Gonosor, 
name  of  the  king  of  Ireland  in  the  story  (Lbseth,  p.  13),  is,  probably, 
also,  a  mere  corruption  of  Nabugodonosor,  the  name  of  Nebuchadnezzar 
in  the  Latin  Bible. 

30  Lbseth,  pp.  llf. 


494  Evolution  of  Arthurian  Romance 

part  of  Tristan,  and  his  censure  on  the  subject  was  reported  to  the 
latter.  They  are  on  opposite  sides  in  the  tournament  at  the  Chateau 
des  Pucelles  (p.  107),  but  they  do  not  come  into  conflict  with 
one  another  until  their  subsequent  combat  at  the  Perron  Merlin 
(p.  147).  On  this  latter  occasion,  however,  each  inspires  his  ad- 
versary with  such  an  admiration  for  his  valor  that  they  cease 
fighting  and  begin  a  contest  in  courtesy  with  one  another  which 
leads  to  the  cementing  of  a  firm  friendship  between  them.  Lance- 
lot, accordingly,  introduces  Tristan  at  Arthur's  court  (p.  148), 
and  later,  when  Tristan  and  Iseult  have  fled  from  Cornwall  to- 
gether, he  puts  Joyous  Gard  at  their  disposal  as  a  refuge  (p.  258). 
Strange  to  say,  however,  the  two  queens  do  not  meet  in  the  ro- 
mance.31 

In  a  similar  spirit,  the  author  of  our  romance  draws  Perce- 
val into  the  story  of  Tristan,  by  making  the  former  duplicate 
Lancelot's  feat32  of  freeing  the  latter  from  captivity  (p.  245). 
All  three,  of  course,  are,  subsequently,  participants  in  the  Grail 
quest,  through  which,  still  further,  as  we  have  seen,  Tristan  is 
brought  into  relations  with  Galahad. 

Like  the  Lancelot,  on  which  it  is  modelled,  the  Tristan  has 
no  plot  such  as  we  require  in  a  modern  work  of  fiction.  Its  form 
is  simply  that  of  a  rambling  biographical  romance  of  the  type 
which  Chretien  had  made  popular  —  expanded,  however,  to  an 
enormous  extent,  as  we  have  seen,  after  the  fashion  of  the  prose 
romances.  On  the  other  hand,  the  style  of  the  Tristan  has  been 
highly  commended  by  the  best  judges  both  of  the  Middle  Ages33 
and  of  Modern  Times,34  and,  in  this  respect,  it  stands,  doubtless, 
in  the  front  rank  of  the  mediaeval  prose  romances.35 


31  P.  260,  Guinevere  expresses  a  desire  to  visit  her  at  Joyous 
Gard,  but  that  is  all. 

32  P.  217. 

38  Cp.  the  passage  from  Brunetto  Latini's  Tresor,  cited,  p.  488, 
note  13,  above. 

84  Cp.  G.  Paris,  Manuel,  p.  111.  It  was  this  quality,  doubtless, 
that  rendered  the  romance  such  a  favorite  with  Ariosto,  if  we  may 
judge  by  the  frequent  use  of  it  which  he  made  in  the  Orlando  Furioso. 

35  The  main  sources  of  the  prose  Tristan,  as  we  have  seen,  are 


The  Prose  Tristan  495 


the  lost  primitive  poem,  from  which  all  extant  Tristan  romances  are 
descended,  and  the  Vulgate  cycle.  The  influence  of  the  Lancelot,  in 
particular,  is  manifest  on  nearly  every  page.  In  the  later  Pseudo- 
Helie  redaction  we  have  noted,  also,  the  influence  of  the  Pseudo-Robert 
cycle.  For  the  sources  of  the  opening  episodes  of  the  romance  see, 
still  further,  p.  492  and  note,  above.  The  author  of  the  earliest  redaction 
knew,  also,  Chretien's  Yvain  and  Erec  —  cp.  Loseth,  pp.  83  ff.  and 
292 ff.,  respectively  —  although  he  alters  materially  the  story  of  Erec 
and  Enide.  We  have  observed,  too,  p.  490,  note  22,  a  trace  of  the 
influence  of  Robert  de  Boron's  Merlin.  He  probably  knew  the 
Meraugis  de  Portlesguez,  the  hero  of  which  is  here  (p.  13)  repre- 
sented as  Marc's  son  by  his  niece.  On  the  other  hand,  he  may  have 
adopted  the  character  merely  from  the  Lancelot. 

It  would  be  useless  to  try  to  determine  the  specific  sources  from 
which  our  romancer  drew  a  number  of  threadbare  folk-tale  motifs, 
exploited  in  his  work:  e.  g.  the  magic  drinking-horn  as  a  chastity  test 
(p.  39),  the  combat  of  father  and  son  (p.  82),  etc.. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  FLORIDA 


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